Musings of an Old Biddy

Holidays

2010-03-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

Just to let you know I shall be away for about three weeks, so blog posts are on hold. See you when I get back.

The Old Biddy

LIVING ON IN STYLE: Benefit Number Two

2010-03-12T09:57:00.000-08:00

I’m sure that at some time, or with great regularity, we have asked and do ask ourselves how long we have on this planet earth? Naturally, none of us can come up with any kind of answer unless we are in the unfortunate position of knowing, because of a medical condition.

Our second benefit in this series is to realize that if we lost weight we would no doubt add a greater number of years to our lives.

Of course, we don’t want the extra years if they are not quality years. But we can strive for quality as well as quantity. To accomplish this, we must again turn our minds to not only watching our diet, exercise, and movements, but also we must keep the brain as active as it can be. We wont get into a discussion as to the type of tricks our memory can play on us as we age – we all know about that. But we are not just concerned with memory, we are concerned with attitude and the activity of the mind.

If we keep an active mind we will maintain a positive rather than a negative attitude. A positive attitude will encourage us to do the things we should be doing to remain fit and healthy in preparation for the many years ahead. In my case, the positive mind set seems to have created a desire to train to become an Olympic athlete, but the old body is definitely not having anything to do with that idea. A negative attitude will not help us at all; we will then be much more inclined to take to the rocking chair and never leave it!

Guess what? If we are carrying around a lot of excess baggage on our bodies, then we are going to have problems unless we can encourage ourselves to try and moderate our current lifestyle and chuck some of those pounds. To encourage ourselves, it helps to have a healthy mind, so look for exercises for the brain on the internet, (and there are plenty of them), do crosswords several times a day and challenge ourselves with some new and interesting activity. After this the attitude will go up and the pounds will go down.

Positive attitude = weight loss = quality of life = additional years in our lives.

© Old Biddy Susan Lancaster

Keywords: Living on In Style, years to our lives, quality years, brain as active, memory, positive attitude, rocking chair, negative attitude, current lifestyle

Public Enemy Number One

2010-03-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

When I started this blog, I wanted to provide some amusement in these posts, but also I hoped to get a discussion going on the odious subject of weight loss, and how this kind of excess baggage will have an awful and insidious effect on our lives as we grow older. Too many of us, both men and women are overweight. My favourite people, the media, seem to focus their comments and support for people from teenagers to those in their 50s. They seem to have forgotten there are people over 60. For the media’s information, the needs of the 60+ are just as important in the matter of weight loss as those of the teens, 20s, 30s, 40, and 50s.

What about the huge and ever expanding group of 60+, which includes some of the baby boomers? People in this age group are battling overweight problems compounded by decreasing metabolic rate and increasing problems with mobility. Note that mobility doesn’t just encompass exercise, it is everything we do in the way of moving our bodies.

We were given arms and legs and this fantastic organ known as the brain to enable our internal and external body functions; but in order for them to operate we were meant to move, and move and move. Overweight does not kill outright, but it offers a spiralling downward plunge into the miserable world of disability from which, in our vintage years, we may not recover. We all accept that different diets work for different people and there is a myriad of movements (exercise) on offer, so we can choose the one most beneficial to us.

Whether you want to diet or just eat sensibly, just do it. Walking, gardening, housework, swimming – it doesn’t matter, just do it and with regularity. To prove my point, when I had a dog to walk, we walked every morning. Not a huff and puff race walk, but a slow, steady one. Now, there are no dogs and I’ve put on 10 lbs. Worse still, the mobility of one leg has ground to a stand still. Ignoring movement and exercise is so easy to do, but ignore it at your peril. I know there are many of you who may rightly argue that I could still have walked. Would you do it every day in the pouring rain? With a dog, you have no choice.

The next few blog posts will be about weight loss and the need for the 60+ to enjoy quality of life. After each post, I will list one of thirteen benefits I see as the result of losing even 5 lbs. and what it could mean for you.

Think about this first benefit: Weight loss will relieve the pressure on our skeletal system. Wouldn’t it be great to get those old bones working with greater ease?

All feed back or examples of your own situation is welcomed.

© Old Biddy Susan Lancaster

The Truly Canadian Olympics

2010-03-04T09:53:00.000-08:00

The outstanding Olympics, the fantastic Olympics, the Olympics that bonded and forged a new national identity in Canada; what a glorious two weeks we have enjoyed. Before the Games opened, I recall finishing my previous post with “…and hopefully to provide many gold medals for Canada”. Who could possibly have foreseen 14 gold medals, the most won by any country since the games started again in 1924.

It was totally unbelievable – everything, including me, a dyed in the wool anti-winter sports viewer who had never watched the Olympic Games and had no interest in them whatsoever, sitting in front of the television set watching all the action day after day. Not quite all; I refused to watch the final hockey game because I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand the tension and excitement. Did I think they would win? I did more than that, I believed.

I think it was the feeling of secret anticipation that something very special was going to happen with these Olympics. Even at home, the feeling of pride for the Olympic team was pervasive. We were a nation celebrating these games together, if not in Robson Square or Whistler, all of us glued to our TV sets. As the Games progressed, so we progressed from not just watching, but getting together, talking about and celebrating these events at home, over coffee breaks, at work, in the pubs, on the buses and at Robson Square and finally Yonge Street in Toronto and various places in the Maritimes and across the Prairies.

In the end we showed our heartfelt feelings of sorrow to the family of the young slider who was killed and to the people of Georgia; we had plenty of snow on Cypress – as John Furlong said, the score was the Blue Jackets 1, Cypress Bowl nil; we slammed our critics, particularly the British and Foreign Press, we overcame protesters by the sheer joy of our enthusiasm; trampled over all negative thoughts and we won. What a victory for Canada and the Olympics. Long may this unity last.

Onions and Carrots Galore

2010-03-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of talking recently with my step-son in the UK. He is quite a guy; a person able to make goals and stick to them in the face of adversity. But, back to today. Iain and his wife, Suzanne, recently moved into another house which requires a lot of TLC and a lot of money to get the TLC on the table. Suzanne is a great decorator and I know when the house is finished it will look superb.

They also acquired an acre of land with the house, with two dog runs dominating the landscape. The previous owner, I understand, was a dog breeder. With a mind to cut the cost of living, which is prohibitively high in England, Iain and Suzanne decided to turn one of the dog runs into a sort an allotment plot. In the middle of house renovations, and work, Iain makes the decision to rent a rotavator to transform the one dog run into a viable piece of land on which to grow veggies of all sorts, sizes and descriptions.

Iain, being Iain, had done all his ‘market garden’ research thoroughly before committing to this plan, including price comparisons with what was available in the supermarket, and the best growing facilities for the produce. In some cases, buckets will work! I was getting so enthused with his descriptions, I pictured myself running out to buy buckets to grow various vegetables!

Then came the crowning announcement. He had bought 3 packets of carrot and onion seed, hoping that it would be enough. When he looked closely, at the packets, he discovered that one packet of carrot seed would produce 3,500 carrots, and one packet of onion seed would produce 2,600 onions. He decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that he would refrain from purchasing any more carrot and onion seeds.

I could not restrain my laughter and suggested that perhaps he’d better set up a vegetable stall outside the house, which would contribute further to his increased economic status.

Finally, our phone call came to an end, and I immediately went to see my husband and suggested that we should resurrect the appropriate pots and frames to grow tomatoes and pepper on the deck. With an uncertain economic future, maybe we should be using common sense and producing fresh, organic vegetables for ourselves. It made sense and, after all, there is nothing like home-grown tomatoes.

The Old Biddy

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Book Review: Malcolm Gladwell’s Books: The Tipping Point; Blink; Outliers and What the Dog Saw.

2010-02-26T11:44:00.001-08:00

My daughter said to me the other day “Whenever anyone asks me who I would like to have lunch with if I could invite anyone at all, I always say Malcolm Gladwell”. I have to agree with her. He is a great pop sociology/psychology writer. I have read all four of his books and delighted in the inquisitiveness revealed in his narrative. His view of the world is one of asking ‘why?’ Many of us say “Isn’t that nice?” and he says “How did that happen?”

All of his books have one thing in common – the author’s ability to spin a yarn. His mind is obviously always asking questions and searching through his prodigious mental database of seemingly trivial information to find examples, connections and situations that lend themselves to illustrating the observations he comes up with. He says that there are underlying reasons for why things are the way they are, and that thinking outside the box, honing our skills of observation, and considering factors that at first may not seem relevant will give us a better understanding of the social world around us.

Malcolm Gladwell, the son of an English father and Jamaican mother, grew up in Ontario and got his degree in history from the University of Toronto. He became a journalist, and in 1996 moved from the Washington Post to The New Yorker where he is now a staff writer. So far, we see nothing really unusual or notable there, including his being a transplanted Canadian. But, have a look at any of his four books and you will see an unusually active mind full of information that he has used to illustrate a number of insightful concepts.

The title of his first book ‘The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference’, says it all. Small things or incidents all by themselves may not seem of any importance, but when they appear in a particular context at a particular time, then the rest is history. One of the many examples in his book is the ride of Paul Revere and his success in mobilizing the population. Gladwell says that success was due to Revere’s knowledge of all the key people in the various towns. In essence he had a phone tree in his head and knew who to contact to get things done. He was also a man trusted by everyone so that when he brought news he had credibility.

The next book, ‘Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking’, tackles the idea of intuition. As Gladwell points out, it is the people who have perfected the art of ‘thin-slicing’, or filtering the significant clues from the myriad of variables flying at them, who display great intuition. He again used many examples to illustrate his point and one of them is the choice of Paul Van Riper, a Viet Nam War veteran, to lead the opposing team in a huge US military war-game. The premise was that an anti-American terrorist with support from four religious and ethnic groups was threatening to destabilize the Persian Gulf region. Gladwell goes on to relate the strategy of each side and the puzzling outcome. Of course, being Gladwell, he then explains what happened and what effect that had on US military war games.

His third book, ‘Outliers: the Story of Success’, reveals his analysis of why some people with potential became famous and wealthy and others do not. Examples here range from why many professional hockey players are born in January, why Bill Gates and Steve Jobs rose to software dominance, and what the Beatles and Mozart had in common. He points out that potential is important but so is time and place. You need all three in sync for that winning combination. Would the talents of Bill Gates been nurtured had he lived in the 1800’s, or in Patagonia? Probably not. I have always thought this and here Gladwell confirms it.

The most recent book ‘What the Dog Saw: and Other Adventures’, is another take on factors behind the ‘why’ of a trend, an idea, a hit. A simple observation – lots of types of mustard, but only one ketchup (Heinz) – leads to an analysis of the few contenders for ketchup supremacy compared with Heinz. It turns out that Heinz has that perfect combination of tastes for our mouths that the others just have never matched. An interesting little anecdote here is Gladwell’s lunch date with two professional tasters and their constant parsing of the flavours in each dish they order.

These books are easy to read, entertaining, and informative. There is probably a certain amount of cherry-picking of examples but they do illustrate points the author is trying to make very well. They leave you with a new insight into the 'why' of things and a sense that the back story is as interesting as, and maybe even more informative than the headlines in the news. What would he make of the Tiger Woods story? Now there is a case crying for study and analysis.

Biddy Gloria

The Golden Years – Oh Really?

2010-02-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

Along the lines of the last post about my situation with my far-distant hip replacement; I thought I would jot down a few thoughts on another subject which dominates our minds as we find ourselves unable to do various things at home, in the garden and out in this wide world of ours – Seniors’ Homes or Residences.

It is not all a bed of roses.

I have a very good friend who is resident in a seniors’ home which offers assisted living. On my first visit to see her, I thought I was entering a country mansion. In fact the sooner I could sell my house and move in the better. Oh, it was wonderful; a coffee corner, a shop for things like milk, juice etc, an elegant dining room, plenty of lounge space in which to relax, large windows allowing the sun to light up the building, gardens and garden rooms. What more could I ask – and above all, no more cooking and no more trying to figure out what to cook.

My friend has a spacious apartment with a good view which I think she enjoys, but since I see her regularly, I am beginning to realize the mental cost of all these efficient services and attractive settings for her particularly.

My friend, who is semi-paralyzed, gets care to cover the various things she cannot do and this care amounts to approximately 1.5 hours per day. The care and services are reasonable, but the management and billing practices are totally unreasonable. Fortunately, my friend is still very much in charge of her life and is considerably younger than most of the residents. If she sees what she deems to be an irregularity she will go all out to rectify it, which she did quite recently. But, it was like pulling teeth because staff like to pass the buck, disclaim responsibility, don’t communicate among themselves and provide inadequate management. On top of this, at the back of my friend’s mind was that she might ultimately pay for this issue by alienating the people who look after her. A deterrent for a lesser mortal.

We talked quite a bit about this situation, and both of us felt that it was unfair to a number of residents who were not quite aware of what was going on and therefore are oblivious to any ‘improprieties’. They just go with the flow and pay their bills. Then there are the residents who would like to make a statement, but they are old, they are tired and they lack the will to put up a fight. Many small problems can and are settled but the larger problems can become drawn out sagas and that is when the resident looses heart. Sometimes there are relatives who are only too happy to step in and help, but many times there are not and the resident is on his or her own.

Then there are the subsidized residents who really don’t need to care. They are just happy to have a good roof over their head and plenty of comforts. They are totally unaware of what is going on with management or finance because they don’t have bills to pay at the end of the month.

I am perhaps painting a somewhat gloomy picture, but it is not all bad. Living in a seniors’ home does allow you to live out your life in relative peace without the worry and responsibility of house and home which can be bad enough at times for the elderly. However, for myself, I will stay in my own place for as long as I can possibly manage it – I think.

Before ending and as an aside; a friend of mine asked me the other day how I was going to get up and down the stairs in my house (and there are lots of stairs – all 14 of them) in my current condition of restricted movement. I replied that I will be taking up the luge!

The New Year’s Gift

2010-02-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve been quite busy for the last month or so trying to organize elements of our planned trip to the UK. There seemed to be so many things to decide upon; the cost, the method of travel, suitable timing to that we can see everyone who is pretty much scattered at the moment, and also the holiday side of it which is to visit Scotland.

While turning all this over in my mind, I began to experience difficulties with my left leg giving me some discomfort. As the days went by there was more discomfort and discomfort then turned to pain. That was it. Obviously whatever it was it was not going to get better by itself so I had better get to see the doctor.

After the trip to the doctor’s office subsequent x-rays and a return to the office to get the results, I was told a hip replacement is necessary. I am sure I mouthed some not very pleasant language under my breath while all my expectations of seeing the family again fell off the cliff and travel plans are going to wait for at least another year. In fact, I thought to myself, it could well be two years.

Clutching a slip of paper written in chicken scrawl, I went to the referral office and presented the doctor’s request. Finally, after they contacted the surgeon I had named, the earliest appointment is August 8th – and this is just to see the specialist! After requesting a space on the cancellation list (fat chance), I left the office in a complete daze and went back to the car. Last year it was cataracts, this year it is a hip replacement (hopefully), but what about next year? Thank goodness my husband was driving home.

To day, two weeks later, I was back at the doctor’s office to run some ideas by him which would enable me to get to see someone before August, otherwise, I feel I’m going to be in a wheel chair before then. Unfortunately my hands are tied, because he is reluctant for me to go elsewhere to see someone he doesn’t know. Fair enough – although I had not intended doing that. Finally, we came up with a plan – and I will keep you posted, although not in full, gory detail.

I should not be complaining at all, except for the pain because so many people I know have had far worse to put up with, but at least they were able to see their specialist much sooner. Ah well, that’s life, I suppose.

St. Valentine’s Day

2010-02-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

I was lying in bed this morning, struggling to remember what day it was – the date more than the day. Finally, after trying to focus on the subject it dawned on me - St. Valentine’s day. A kind of sad/happy day for me. On February 14th, 1876 my maternal grandfather was born on this day and he always received Valentine cards from his granddaughters. On February 14th, 2003, my dearest friend left this planet – my mother. I still miss her so much.

St. Valentine’s day is a time for romance – what romance, I wonder? I should take time to do a poll on how many elderly husbands give anything to their wives on Valentine’s Day. Speaking from experience, I suspect the answer would be not many compared to the younger generation who seem to shower affection on one another on this particular day. Therein is the truth of the matter, I think. When we were young adults we expected the man to use his initiative, and if he didn’t, then we were inclined to chastise him for forgetfulness or neglect! But if you think about it, why do we hold them in contempt now. After all, they are just following years of tradition. As the wounded wife, we could break with that tradition and shower them with flowers or chocolates even if there is no appreciation for such a gesture, except may be the odd grunt.

On an entirely different matter, I have to throw my two bits in about the Olympics so far. An unbelievable masterpiece presented itself for the opening ceremonies and I had to pinch myself to realize that I belong to this beautiful province of British Columbia in Canada. The opening ceremonies were magical and the only downside was the National Anthem. Nikki Yanofsky has a lovely voice, but her rendition of our anthem left me cold, as I suspect it did with many other people. It was such a patriotic moment and with 60,000 people there, they all needed to get in and sing, never mind listen to anyone crooning a national anthem.

It was so sad that the young Georgian athlete met with a fatal accident on the day of the opening ceremonies and my heart really does go out to his parents and family, together with admiration for the rest of the team who bravely marched in the opening ceremonies.

Our first gold medal is yet to come, but Jenn Heil walked away with Silver for Canada which was a massive achievement. In my book, the Olympics are the ultimate sporting challenge and if anyone can achieve a medal – it doesn’t matter whether it is gold, silver or bronze, they are at the top of their game and make us proud. Well done, Jenn and thank you.

This ‘I believe’ that Canadian athletes will inundate us with gold medals tends to make us forget that other athletes from all over the world are going for gold too – not just us, unfortunately!

The Old Biddy

The Roo Olympics

2010-02-10T15:41:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking about the Olympics – for what reason I don’t know because I am not a winter sports fan and therefore not particularly an Olympic Fan. Still, the ‘Boxing Roo” flag the Australians draped across their part of the Olympic Village, epitomizes the determined spirit that is alive as the Games are about to open. Living on Vancouver Island does not give us the sense of excitement that is perhaps prevalent in Vancouver. But sitting on the sidelines as a spectator does help to put these Olympic Games in perspective from a personal point of view.

I like the idea of the games because they are a once in a lifetime event for the host city to showcase itself to the rest of the world. Even though they require massive amounts of planning and money, I think they are worth it. There is a sense of national pride because the Canada and Vancouver are hosting the Olympics. There is a huge congregation of top athletes in one place for two weeks, not only competing for the highest honour, but also fostering camaraderie among the nations of the world.

The Olympic Games themselves are an historic event, having first been introduced to the world in the 8th Century BC where they took place in Olympia, Greece. They continued on until the 5th Century AD when, for some reason, they were abandoned. The Games were resurrected by Baron de Coubertin in 1894 when the first International Olympic Committee was founded and they have been growing ever since.

Apart from providing the host city and country with substantial economic benefits, there is the benefit of visitors coming from all over the world to see the games, and mingle with local residents, providing a potpourri of friendliness, entertainment, participation, excitement and, of course, a sense of global unity. Factored in is the historic journey of the Olympic Flame travelling from coast, to coast to coast. All Canadians have had a chance to be a part of this unique event and the nationalistic feeling it evoked.

What is the downside? Many people will sum up by saying it is a waste of time and money. Others will rebel and protest because they feel the amount of money necessary to host the Olympics, could be used for something much more worthwhile. The truth of the matter is that money has to be raised to cover the cost of the Olympics and would the same money be raised to cover the cost of deserving enterprises here at home?

In Vancouver there are also problems perhaps not encountered in other countries because of the geographical location of the city. Problems like traffic restrictions on many of the roads in and around the city. Before the games there was a general hue and cry about the lack of space to house visitors, but we now find there is still accommodation available in various parts of the city, and indeed at Whistler itself.

The media is naturally having a feeding frenzy on the subject of a possible ‘snowless’ Cypress Mountain and the deleterious effect they think it will have on the events taking place on Cypress. I suppose one could go on with a litany of woes which are always present at an event of this magnitude. But they will get us nowhere because the Games have come to Vancouver, whether we like it or not, there is snow on Cypress and they are about to open in a no doubt extraordinary fanfare and hopefully to provide many gold medals for Canada.

Book Review: Paths of Glory.

2010-02-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

My paternal grandfather was a great outdoors man and although he never once climbed a mountain, he was all set to regale his granddaughter (me) with knowledge of the highest and most famous mountains throughout the world. This of course, included the climbers who scaled these peaks and his hero, George Leigh Mallory. For the uninitiated, George Mallory led two expeditions to climb Everest; one in 1922 and the other in 1924.

When Jeffrey Archer wrote his latest book ‘Paths of Glory’, it became a must read for me because Jeffrey Archer is a terrific story teller. Of course, I also knew about George Mallory and had an appetite to know more so that I would know exactly who my grandfather was lauding.

This is an excellent book and excellent subject matter. It is a true story written as fiction where ‘poetic’ license has been used to a point. However, all the facts are there and they alone are enough to produce a page turning story.

At that time, since Captain Scott’s demise at the South Pole, all eyes were looking for someone to execute the last remaining great feat, that of conquering Everest. Mallory certainly fitted the bill with his climbing abilities, second to none at that time. He was a handsome, charismatic man with a huge amount of drive and determination.

In fact Archer’s characterization of all men and women involved with this mindboggling project was so alive. I felt that I could join in the conversations they were having and feel the same way they were feeling at a time when history was in favour of the still strong British Empire. The story traces Mallory from his childhood, through his teenage years as he develops the art of climbing, through his service in the trenches during the first world war, his career as a school teacher and the ever nagging desire to climb the highest peak in the world – ‘because it is there’.

Mallory made two attempts to climb Everest and after the first experience and subsequent hooplah by the public, he really felt that he had had enough and that he would like to remain home with his wife and children. But, that was not to be since one of the second expedition planners visited Mallory’s wife, Ruth, and asked her to encourage George to go and take charge of the second expedition. This she did, although very much against her will. This book is not only an adventure story, it is also a beautiful old-fashioned love story.

Paths of Glory is also full of humour and I couldn’t help laughing out loud over the description of Mallory getting himself outfitted for the expedition. He went to the local clothing store with a list, and the store owner was busy making useful suggestions, while gathering together what Mallory thought he needed. When asked by the store owner if he would encounter snow, Mallory replied in the affirmative. So the store owner assured him that he would need an umbrella!

This is a stunning adventure of the human spirit, about men who were not deterred by climbing the highest peak in the world and overcoming all the inherent dangers it posed. In fact in some cases, they even made it sound as though they were off to an afternoon tea party, never mind Everest. After all, as Mallory said, “It’s because it’s there”.

The Processed Turkey

2010-02-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

Since the last post concerned food – albeit a yummy bread recipe, it has prompted me to tell you about my not so yummy experiences with the Christmas Turkey, because cooking it revealed something which was not known to me.

After collecting the 10lb bird from the store two days before Christmas, we kept it cool in the frig. After completing the necessary preparations before cooking we put it in the oven on Christmas day to cook according to the instructions on the plastic cover.

Removing it from the oven after the appropriate amount of cooking time, it seemed a little on the tough side and my husband felt that it needed another half hour. We gave it another half hour and it was still on the toughish side but we decided to eat it anyway.

I think this last Christmas was the first time I didn’t enjoy my turkey – it was tough, it certainly didn’t have the succulent turkey flavour, and we had no idea what the problem was.

Neither one of us wanted to have cold turkey the following day, so the next best thing was to boil it all up and make a soup. What a mistake! An awful smell pervaded the kitchen and I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was a smell I had experienced once before with some turkey legs cooked for the dog – for want of a better description, I detected a definite smell of stale bleach. Before I finished cooking the soup, the entire content was thrown out and that was the end of our turkey.

A few days later I was in the store that supplied us with the turkey, and I felt, after some cogitation, that I had to mention the turkey and I did. The meat manager was most sympathetic and glad that I reported it. He would get in touch with the suppliers.

A week later the suppliers were in touch with us, and admitted to my husband that just before they are finally packaged, the birds are bleached and rinsed and occasionally one slips through the rinsing stage. In our case, the bird that missed the rinsing stage was our turkey!

We were reimbursed by the company concerned but to me it was one more nail in the coffin of processed food. Yuk!

Yummy Banana Yeast Bread

2010-01-28T17:49:00.000-08:00

Gloria usually posts book reviews, but this time she has a surprise for us and it sounds delicious - I will be making it.

Winter is the best time to be baking bread. I love the aromas that come from the oven and fill the house with the promise of great eating to come. Of course, before that can happen, I need to find a recipe, get inspired and actually go through all the steps necessary to get that loaf into the oven.

The first step is to comb the recipe books for just the right bread. Anything needing a starter is out at the moment as the cupboard is bare on that front. Likewise anything with olives or exotic cheeses or unusual flours or oils will not be considered. Do I want a flat bread, a peasant bread, rolls, baguettes, a braid, or a nice pan loaf? Oh the decisions that must be made sometimes can stop a good intention right in its tracks.

Once the hurdle of making a choice is over and the ingredients and equipment are assembled, the process begins. Measure, mix, let rise, punch down, shape, rise again, bake and voila! There it is in all its glory. I stand holding this wonderful piece of work with a big smile on my face. Dinner will just be an accompaniment to this centerpiece.

My latest endeavour was a banana yeast bread. The day I made this we had Chicken Korma, steamed cauliflower, squash, rice and green beans to keep it company. Great meal and the bread was delicious. It turned out just a bit crusty, nicely rounded and deep brown in colour. Inside there was that distinctive yeast-produced airiness to the texture but still some moistness from the bananas. Very yummy later on as toast with honey.

For any of you who want to try it…

2 ½ c. whole wheat flour
1 c. white flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp dry skim-milk powder
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp cracked wheat
2 tsp instant dry yeast

Mix all this together in a large mixing bowl. I have a Kitchenaid stand mixer with a dough hook.

Combine in a 2-cup measuring cup

2 mashed ripe bananas
2 tsp liquid honey
Enough water to bring the measure to 1 ½ cups

Pour this into the dry mixture and mix very well. Knead for 7 to 10 minutes. If it seems too dry or too wet (bananas vary in their moisture content) then add water or flour, depending, a tablespoon at a time until the dough is easy to knead. It is better for it to be slightly sticky than for it to be really dry.

Let rise covered until double – about 1- 1 ½ hours. Punch down and shape into two balls. Shaping two balls instead of one encourages rising. Place in a greased loaf pan, cover and rise another hour until doubled.
Bake in hot 425 F for 25 – 30 minutes. If the top gets too brown for your liking, cover loosely with foil.

Bring out the butter and enjoy.

Biddy Gloria

Vancouver and All That: The Lost Car

2010-01-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

I stayed with my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter Vera, while in Vancouver, and discovered that Vera had very little in the way of books to read. Apparently her books were left in the Philippines because transporting them by air was a no-go due to weight. So, I promised Vera that I would buy her some new books when I went out on Monday.

Monday afternoon found me in the children’s book department in Chapters, Metrotown.I had a wonderful time, but unfortunately my legs were causing me problems because of all the packing and cleaning over the weekend, so I had to keep resting. Sitting down was what I was going to do anyway, because I had arranged to meet second son and ex-husband in Metrotown and they were never on time. We were going to younger son’s condominium for negotiations on the purchase of the property.

Of course, they were late and late and very late, so I decided that the best thing for me was to return to downtown Vancouver as it was getting a little late for a meeting. Off I went to get the car, but upon arrival at the parking place there was no car. Around the mall entrance area I walked a couple of times, getting more panic stricken because in the trunk of the car was a fair amount of cash which I was to give someone downtown. Finally, on legs which would hardly carry me I made my way to the mall administration office to enquire whether any cars had been towed. No, they had not and it was suggested I see security right away.

Following their directions to the security office I couldn’t find it (typical), and almost in tears, I made my way back to Chapters to sit for a while. Suddenly, manna from heaven – a security guy appeared walking out of Chapters and I immediately flagged him down. Unfortunately, he didn’t represent the branch of security I wanted, but he did kindly offer to have a rep from traffic security come to me, so I wouldn’t have to walk.

The traffic security rep arrived five minutes later, seemingly quite enthused about assisting a doddery old woman who had lost her car. He told me how, quite often, people lost their car in the parkade, because they couldn’t remember where they had parked it. I vehemently denied that this was the my case. I was always attentive as to where I parked my car in parking lots and parkades, so there was very little possibility of me having forgotten where I had put the car.

At his request, I gave him all the details, took his duly offered arm, and rode the escalator down to the next floor. We went through the same procedures as I had done when I came to look for the car, and nothing was to be found. Finally, as we walked back into the building again, he turned and asked me if I had checked the lower floor!

Ding dong! Acute embarrassment swept over me because I hadn’t even thought about the lower floor. However, the embarrassment was tempered by the excitement of possibly finding the car and the money. Down to the next level we went to find the car. As we came out of the building doorway and turned in the direction of the parking spot, there gleamed a touch of bright red front car body belonging to my rented car. I could have jumped for joy.

The security rep couldn’t have been nicer in the face of the chagrin felt by yours truly. When we arrived back at Chapters, he even offered to go and find my son who was hopefully looking for me just outside the main entrance of Chapters. When they arrived back, I knew by the look on Michael’s face that it would be a while before I lived down that experience. I had hoped it would be over and done with that day. Fat chance!

Vancouver and All That….. The Skytrain

2010-01-21T11:16:00.000-08:00

My next adventure in Vancouver, following the shock of the parkade rates, was an incident the following evening.

I had been working non-stop packing and cleaning at the condominium and decided to call it a day at about 10:00p.m. Son number one called me from downtown and offered to come and collect me from Burnaby in the car. I assured him there was no problem and he could pick me up at Burrard station downtown from the Skytrain.

Off I went with friend Bob who drove me to the Metro station and I boarded the Skytrain after just a few minutes wait. Settling myself down in the middle coach, to the rear, I took out some reading material (don’t even remember what it was).

At the following station a couple of men boarded the train. One was tallish, a little on the chubby side with a round face and totally out of it – drunk as a lord. The other was much quieter but seemed prepared to follow up on any remarks that came non-stop from the drunken one.

When they stepped onto the train, the first thing the drunken lord shouted was “Well, there’s grandma and how’s grandma this evening? I nearly died, but I am not sure whether it was because of fear or outrage. Outrage that apparently I looked my age – how dare they! Hadn’t I been told dozens of times that I didn’t look my age? The lesser drunken lord made his way to behind my seat and sat down to peer over my shoulder to see what I was reading, while there was a stream of unending grandma remarks coming from the drunken lord who had parked himself, thank goodness, by the door. There were no abusive remarks uttered, but I slowly started to get quite concerned because I was not sure where it all would end.

I sat rigidly staring at my book, not giving them the satisfaction of even recognizing the grandma tirade and I could see the three young girls in front of me showing a bit of concern.

Having received no joy in getting any reaction from me, the two men suddenly disappeared down to the other end of the car, and started on another subject. I relaxed a little, but not for long, because they soon came back and started on about grandma again. All of a sudden, one of the young girls sitting opposite to our drunken lord let him have it.

“For f…….. sake why don’t you just shut up?” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Leave her alone”. (Grandma, that is).

Just as she was about to hurl further rage in his direction and I think, if necessary, get up and hit him, we drew up at a station, the doors opened and there was a couple of Skytrain policemen. Never was I or anyone else in that car so thankful as they yanked the drunken lord out of the car onto the station platform.

The young girls in front of me immediately turned to make sure that I was OK, and I assured them with a forced smile that I was a tough old bird and would survive. They were not to know that I had a very heavy handbag at the ready at all times, and would have lashed out with all my strength if the drunken lord and his mate had approached me physically.

We concluded that, unbeknown to us, someone at the other end of the car must have called for help and there was definitely a communal sigh of relief when the closing doors shut out our intruder.

What a journey. Obviously I had been living in the past and had expected the journey to be calm and uneventful. Fat chance!

Vancouver and All That………..

2010-01-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

It’s a New Year – 2010. However, it is a disastrous New Year for all people living in Haiti, and our thoughts and prayers must go out to these people facing a seemingly non-existent future, based on a very poor foundation of a past.

Welcome back to my Blog, to which I have returned with a multitude of New Year resolutions, knowing full well that practically none of them are going anywhere. That sounds like a bit of positive thinking, doesn’t it?

Thought I would write a few short blogs during the next couple of weeks about some very recent, unplanned and unwanted experiences on a trip to Vancouver. My mission to that fair city was to provide some help (mainly cleaning) for ex husband who was moving out of his condo, and to see my lovely granddaughter.

Instead of going on the ferry as a foot passenger, this time the mode of transportation was via rented car because I had to take some household items to my son and daughter in law, who had just moved into an apartment after arriving back from a sojourn in the Far East. They had not a stick of furniture or anything else for that matter, so the cry went out to family members and I volunteered to do my thing.

For me, driving in Vancouver is a bit of a nightmare, but I managed quite well until I arrived on the corner of West Georgia Street and Burrard. Here I had to find a parking place in order to meet an old friend for lunch, who I hadn’t seen for about four years. I must have been out of my tree if I even vaguely thought (which indeed I did), that there would be a parking space waiting for me to install my car. Fat chance! After doing the grand tour of the vicinity for about half an hour I was resigned to going into a parkade.

My friend and I had a wonderful lunch and a great catch up session, both of us ruing the difficulties of living at opposite ends of this vast country of ours. After about two and a half hours, she went her way and I went mine, back to collect the car. Not having a clue about the cost, I had my ten dollar bill ready to hand to the attendant, but was informed that the cost was $21.00! I had to ask him for a second time because I simply didn’t believe what he said; I had a heck of a time composing and reminding myself that the parking attendant had nothing to do with setting the sky-high rates in the parkade. After taking time to retrieve the additional payment from my bag, I reluctantly handed over the money.

With the stress caused by this exorbitant bill, it took me a while to set the car on a straight course to my son’s apartment which was not that far away, thank goodness.

Ah, well, more next time on this trip.

A Very Happy and Merry Christmas to All

2009-12-23T16:24:00.000-08:00

Am signing off for a couple of weeks and will see you again in the New Year. I wish you all the very best for 2010.

The Old Biddy

A Victorian Adventure

2009-12-22T15:50:00.000-08:00

About one month ago, four nearly old biddies, Aileen, Norma, Pat and Betty decided to go to Victoria. The Royal British Columbia Museum had been advertising an exhibit of Artifacts from the British Museum, and the girls thought it would be interesting and would make a pleasant day out.

Aileen, who is a very efficient organizer, agreed to take care of reservations for the one night stay in the hotel. The rest of the girls were quite happy to let her get on with it. The only stipulation they made was that the hotel had to be close to the museum which was in downtown Victoria.

There were three hotels in the area, the Queen Victoria Inn, the Chateau Victoria and the Executive House. However, they were all a little more than the girls wanted to pay. Aileen did note that one of the hotels advertised that there would be a price reduction shortly, so she decided to phone later when the lower prices became an option.

The four left Nanaimo early with Betty at the wheel of the car. The drive to Victoria was excellent and they decided en route, to get settled in at the hotel before going to the museum for the rest of the day.

As they reached the outskirts of Victoria, Betty asked what hotel they were staying in. Aileen replied that she thought it was the Chateau Victoria, but wasn’t quite sure, but she would know it as soon as she saw it. Their first call was the Chateau Victoria, but when it came into view, Aileen decided that the Chateau was definitely not the hotel they were looking for. Putting her hand on Betty’s shoulder, she confirmed that it was not the Chateau Victoria, so maybe Betty could turn the car around and head for the Queen Victoria Inn.

“Yes, this is our hotel”, Aileen said with a sigh of relief as they drove up to the entrance of the hotel. Everyone got out of the car and followed Aileen to the reservations desk. They relished the idea that within a few minutes they would be off to the museum, which, of course was the whole purpose of the trip.

“I’m very sorry,” said the girl behind the reservations desk looking at the slip of paper Aileen had provided, “but this is not one of our reservation numbers and we have no record of you coming to stay with us tonight.” Aileen looked stunned and the girls’ faces mirrored her concern. Aileen’s mind then went into overdrive. Having dismissed the Chateau Victoria as their destination after seeing the hotel, she now thought she must have booked there.

“Would you be kind enough to telephone the Chateau Victoria,” she asked the sympathetic looking receptionist, “to see if they have a reservation for us”.

But even after that telephone call they were no further ahead. The Chateau Victoria had never heard of them.

Poor Aileen, who was usually the epitome of efficiency, now looked decidedly fussed and her mind was frantically trying to work out what had happened. Of course, it didn’t help that the rest of the girls and the receptionist were trying to offer some helpful hints, even though they didn’t have a clue as to how the mix-up had occurred.

Frantically trying to sort out the booking procedures she had used back home, a vague notion occurred to her. What if she had mistaken the telephone numbers on the brochure? She asked the receptionist if the hotel had a copy of the visitor’s guide she had used when she did the initial bookings by phone. Ten minutes later the guide surfaced and was almost snatched up by a grateful Aileen.

Turning to where the Queen Victoria Inn was listed, she ran her fingers down the page until she reached the Queen Victoria Inn and then moved across the page. In the next column there was The Quality Inn, and there next to it was probably the telephone number she had used, thinking it belonged to the Queen Victoria Inn.

A quick call to the Quality Inn confirmed they were booked in. From that moment onwards, Aileen began to feel considerably better. Of course, it was not as close to the Museum as they had wanted it to be, but it was only four blocks further out and at least they had a bed for the night – at the lower rate. All four of them were beginning to have nightmares which involved sleeping in a tent in the nearby park!

After thanking the receptionist profusely for all her help, the girls departed in the car for the Museum, which they enjoyed very much – comforted by the fact that they didn’t have to worry any more as to where they were going to sleep.

The following morning, after a comfortable night and a good breakfast, they left back to Nanaimo after thorough enjoying their Victorian adventure.

What Happy People Know: Just in Time for Christmas

2009-12-16T10:05:00.000-08:00

Bookstores and libraries are my favourite places to visit (besides ice cream parlours and beautiful gardens). On a recent visit to two excellent bookstores in Courtenay, The Laughing Oyster and The Blue Heron, I noticed how many books there were on happiness. It is an interesting phenomenon of our times that while we have more material comfort than any previous generation, our happiness levels are very low. I checked out several of the books and noticed that similar ideas or themes appear in many of them, such as:

Focus on the present. Living in the past or the future detracts from life now.

Create a family life which is satisfying and healthy. If you’ve had a difficult childhood with poor parenting, take steps that allow you to break the cycle.

Accept responsibility for your life now. It’s easy to blame others. YOU control how you respond to situations--don’t let others control your life.

Develop good friendships. We can’t pick our family, but we can choose friends who help us be better people. Loving friendships help us be healthy, long-lived adults.

Avoid negative or unhealthy friendships. Seek out people who make you feel good!

Find a hobby or sport that you love--even grownups need to play.

Make choices that develop character. Be a person others can trust. Keep your word. Avoid gossip.

Work on meeting your own expectations of yourself, those are the ones that really count.

When negative thoughts enter your mind, press the delete button.

Create a well-balanced life, with time for family, work, friendships, exercise and hobbies.

Count your blessings. An old saying, but so true. We are 'the keepers of our own contentment.'

Learn to live within your means. Worry about debt is a prime cause of unhappiness and marital problems.

If you are frequently sad and experience little joy or enthusiasm, you may be depressed. Research the symptoms of depression online. If you have several, talk to your family doctor. A great deal can be done to improve the quality of your life.

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows
it under his feet. James Oppenheim

(c) 2009 Virginia Brucker. Virginia is the author of Gifts from the Heart: Simple Ways to Make Your Family’s Christmas More Meaningful. It’s the perfect book about creating a recession-proof Christmas. Order copies for everyone on your Christmas list.

Musings on Imagination

2009-12-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

Much has been written about famous men and women who have achieved success in spite of hardship and difficult childhoods. We admire them for what they have achieved, seemingly from nothing.

Imagination is something inherent in everyone but successful people have used their imagination to motivate themselves to succeed. How did they do this? Very simply by using an event or situation that appeared in their daily lives. In their mind they turned that subject into something they wanted to believe in, so they could recall it again and again.

For example, every young child who sees Peter Pan would like to think that they, too, can ‘fly’ like the boy who never grew up. After parents put a stop to the actual flying, the children then go on to imagine flying and other situations involving Peter Pan, Captain Hook and the Crocodile, etc. Children build these situations into their imagination so they have a clear picture in their mind of what they would like to see.

Other children might decide that if they cannot fly like Peter Pan, then they are not going to follow through on anything associated with the play, so the story and the meaning are soon forgotten. This may change if there is encouragement by parents, family, friends and teacher. For example, a friend of mine, when she was young , started to copy the actions of famous people. She consciously incorporated some of their character traits into her everyday living. This practice did not catapult her to fame, but she did develop a strong and sensuous personality which has been very beneficial to her in work and relationships.

There are a myriad of ways to encourage this creative power called imagination, through events in everyday living such as: books, films, television programs, discussions, trips, sightseeing, socializing, the theatre – the list is endless. Definitely one of the most popular ways to encourage the creative visions in a young person is through books. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis exposes young readers to a story rich in adventure and belief.

In another set of adventure books called Hell’s Gate Trilogy, a young person has the opportunity to see how belief affects their every day lives. This is demonstrated by the extraordinary adventures three young people fall into and the three angels/animals who accompany them. These books are set in three different places in the world and in one adventure the youngsters travel through time. There is plenty of opportunity for readers to use their imagination in these books.

If the family likes to participate in games with their children, putting imagination to work in a game can be enjoyable and interesting. Just organize everyone into small or large teams, give them a subject, and ask them to write a one page story about that subject. There is a time line for completing this, and the results are read to the rest of the gathering when everyone has finished. It can be very funny and a powerful use of the imagination.

The more children practice imagination, the more likely it is that they will be successful in various aspects of their life. This is not an easy task to accomplish; as it becomes more difficult to sustain the image developed initially and then follow it through to success. Many have done it. They have taken the image they created, have kept it in front of them and pursued it with a passion. In all probability, they had lots of encouragement from people around them, which is most important. Perhaps in some cases they have not had any inspiration from other people, but have hung onto their vision until it became a reality. We may never know the circumstances behind success, but one thing we do know is that imagination counts in the lives of our children.

It counts in our lives too, it keeps us going!

The Old Biddy
©2008 Susan Lancaster.

Book Review; A Fascinating Story

2009-12-03T15:59:00.000-08:00

Here is a book you will need to curl up with in front of the fire over Christmas time – if you ever have any time to curl up! The book is called ‘Audition’ and is a Memoir by Barbara Walters.

Although I saw her a few times on television, she was not a person in whom I was particularly interested. But the book reviews were good and I felt that if nothing else it could be an interesting read and I would gain a bit more insight into her life. My goodness, she is one super lady who can honestly say – ‘been there, done that’. The great thing about this book is that you can almost feel the presence of the narrator. It’s as if she is telling you the intimate details of her life and her career and you are the only one in the room listening.

Barbara Walters is warm, open and honest – not a bit like the person I thought she portrayed on T.V. The times when I did see her interviewing people in the past I felt a bit uncomfortable because I never knew how much pressure she would put on people to get the information she wanted. Having read the book, I find now that this is the trait of a good interviewer.

Her own personal life has been far from idyllic for her and I’m sure that many people will equate with her and the family problems she had to deal with.

In her extraordinary life she has interviewed thousands of people. ‘What she said and what he said’, are all there to read. She certainly doesn’t skip over some of the spicy and risqué comments that came from some of her interviewees. This makes us appreciate the interesting, personal and funny side of all the conversations.

Somehow, I connected her TV shows with interviewing celebrities; not a bit of it. The people she interviewed came from all walks of life and all nationalities. They were a cross section of presidents and first ladies; celebrities who had affected Barbara in her life; heads of state, holy men, uncommon criminals and murderers and, of course, Joe public.

She was really a ground breaker in her chosen profession and in many cases she wrote the rules. She had a lot to put up with, especially sexism in her early years. Her kind of journalism was cornered mainly by men in the early years and she was viewed as an intruder. But, she triumphed over everything and went on to become a legend in her own time. How she ever managed to accomplish all this and have a family life is beyond me.

She has shown through this story that a woman can be tough, driven and successful and still be a woman. Through it all she exuded a warmth and compassion which I never imagined she had.

Just read it and enjoy.

Who is the Babysitter?

2009-11-29T17:33:00.000-08:00

I was chatting on the phone the other day to my ex-husband in Vancouver about our granddaughter. Having just returned from Asia recently, my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter Vera, age 4, are staying with Grandpa for a short while.

My son and his wife do not go out often but they like to get away to do some grocery shopping for a couple of hours without Vera tagging along.

Grandpa’s not happy about this because he is the one who is left to babysit. It is not that he doesn’t like looking after Vera, but the problem is he has a habit of nodding off throughout the day and doesn’t feel that he is a responsible baby-sitter any more. In fact, it was really worrying him that he is not able to look after his beloved granddaughter to the best of his ability.

Grandpa now feels that this practice has to stop; a decision that weighed heavily after a recent half hour trip to the store by my son. As our son was going out of the door he turned back and reminded Vera that she had to keep an eye on Grandpa and make sure that he is awake. If he goes to sleep, then she must wake him up. Vera responded that she was quite capable of looking after her Grandpa.

Who, is minding whom, I ask?

AN INVITATION

2009-11-25T15:57:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wanted to write a story, perhaps a book, perhaps a mystery? If you want to write why not give it a try. I have a fun project on the go and I invite you to help me out.

If you go to http://susanlancaster.blogspot.com you will find another blog of mine that starts off with the opening few pages of a mystery novel. It would be great to get other people involved in writing a continuation of the book as it stands at the moment.

You don’t have to be an expert in grammar, the champion of a spelling bee, or a punctuation king or queen. It is simply a matter of writing whatever you like and using your imagination as to how you would like the story to develop. You can introduce a new line of thinking, new characters, new situations, new plots or sub-plots, but just write.

While talking about adding to the novel, I would also like to extend an invitation for you to write for this blog if you wish. If you have a short story, an experience you want to share, a humorous situation or whatever you like, please write about it (approximately 400-500 words) and send it to me at sanden39@shaw.ca.

Again, don’t worry about the grammar or spelling etc. I always edit content before posting and I will come back to you if there is a problem. Likewise, you article will only be posted after your OK.

Join me in these writing adventures and if you would like further explanations or information, please write to me at the above e-mail address.

Look forward to hearing from you.

The Old Biddy

BOOK REVIEW

2009-11-20T10:10:00.000-08:00

This book is a must read. As one reviewer put it, ‘I’m a 54 year old who has not been a teen for 35 years. This is an incredible read’.

THE BOOK THIEF
by Markus Zusak, reviewed by Gloria Novak.

The book is a real tour de force. Its success is the combination of sympathetic characters, a web of simple stories and a masterful use of vocabulary.

This book may be written for the Young Adult crowd but trust me, the vast majority of adults will love this book. Yes, the story is one we have read before - coming of age during WWII, hiding a Jew in the basement, petty thieving among adolescents - but the writing and the consistently clever way with words is fantastic.

Death is the narrator and is working overtime now that the war is in full swing, and every once in a while, he/she has to stop and look around as an antidote for the pain of his job. Liesel Meminger provides some of that respite.

On her way to a foster home to live with Rosa and Hans Hubermann he sees her steal a book. There she painstakingly learns to read and begins her love affair with words.

Death uses words and the placement of those words on the page to paint pictures for the reader that, while about the horror of the war, are evocative but don't get to the point where the book is distasteful. Intense, but still beautiful writing.

You want to keep reading to hear the words in your head; to see what Liesel does or thinks next, to hear Hans and Rosa together, to keep anticipating a kiss between Liesel and Rudy, to see whether Max Vanddenburg (the Jew hiding in the basement) is caught, to read Max's book for Liesel and to wonder at the private pain of the mayor's wife as she silently listens to Liesel read.

These words of mine do not do this book justice. Read it for yourself and then try to describe it - I dare you.

THE WALKING TENT

2009-11-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

As we grow older there is a tendency to shrug off any concerns we may have about how we look and how we feel. Many of us have reconciled ourselves, either consciously or subconsciously to the state of ‘what you see is what you get’ and we simply don’t worry any more. On the other hand, there are people who do care how they look and how they feel, but they hide this concern very well.

Speaking for myself, I am definitely of the ‘what you see is what you get’ variety, except for one thing – weight. That is something I do care about, very much and it drives me mad. When I retired I was delighted to assume the mantle of “The Walking Tent”. For me, the incentive to be a specimen of the perfect woman disappeared immediately when I no longer had to go out to work.

So, I now get up in the morning and throw on The Walking Tent, a loose garment that hides a multitude of sins, or a pair of jeans and top two sizes too big for me, which fools me into thinking that I’ve lost weight. A feeling that persists until I get on the scales and then all hell breaks out.

Make-up, what’s that? I’d almost forgotten to mention that. Who is left to impress. I think my husband regards me as part of the furniture, so I don’t invest in the effort to ‘tart’ myself up – who cares?

Being on the latter side of sixty tends to encourage us to cocoon, perhaps even more so if the scales are governing our lives. If, because of our somewhat large frames, we suffer from pangs of lack of self-confidence, remaining at home provides us with a marvelous reason to enjoy our solitude and become thoroughly antisocial.

Perhaps in the end, we tend to view our physical selves as something resembling bean bags, or soufflés on the verge of collapse. We make sure that the number of mirrors in the house are receding in size and quantity but are grateful that our bodies continue to serve us well. Some of us take an occasional peek into the remaining mirror and have seen the drooping boobs, the slightly wrinkled face and the sagging muscles on various parts of ourselves. We see and accept these facts, but we don’t worry about them because why should we? No matter what anyone will tell you, we still feel the same as we felt in our twenties and the bikini days are long past worrying about.

Perhaps the other side of the argument is that we should care – for a variety of reasons. Caring about ourselves engenders an interest in caring about other people. Caring about other people prohibits us from becoming selfish and antisocial. Caring what we look like gives us confidence in ourselves and maybe a new interest in improving our ho-hum routine. But, possibly, I just can’t be bothered; you get like that, you know.

Perhaps we should cater to those who ‘care’ in another blog spot.

GARDEN SNAKES CAN BE DANGEROUS...

2009-11-14T10:28:00.000-08:00

This arrived in my e-mail the other day and I just couldn’t resist it. There are many metaphors describing the way Murphy’s Law works in my life. This is with thanks to its originator.

Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why.

A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a many potted plants. During a recent cold spell the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.

It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.

She let out a very loud scream.

The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.

He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.

His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.

The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.

About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbour who volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.

But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa.

The neighbour man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbour's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now, the police had arrived.

They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little garden snake!

The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbour and his sobbing wife.

Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.

The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.

Meanwhile, neighbours saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).

Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world.

A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.

And that's when he shot her.

The Broken Dish

2009-11-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, I was cooking the Sunday lunch. The roast was in a casserole dish that had been in the family for years and years. There was nothing special about this dish. It was a rather drab brown, stoneware rectangular dish with gently sloping sides of about two inches in depth. It was not a particularly attractive dish to look at. It was just there, and it was used for everything that was going into the oven. It seemed to be just the right size for all the dishes I cooked, and I rarely used another cooking utensil except for turkeys and large roasts.

During this Sunday lunch preparation, I removed the tin foil lining and picked up the dish to put it in the sink. Because it had been sitting on top of the stove for sometime, I thought it would be quite cool and so didn’t bother to put on the oven mitt. It was not cool. It was hot, hot, hot. It was off the oven top, over the floor and on the way to the sink before I realized that my fingers were burning. I dropped it with a shriek of pain. Upon making contact with the floor, my beloved casserole dish broke into a thousand pieces.

My shriek of pain, turned to tears of anger, and then painful tears of anguish because I had lost a piece of family history. Crowded thoughts of many years suddenly appeared in my head, particularly of my parents and two sisters. This dish had reminded me of the love and warmth we enjoyed as a family, together with the heartaches and tears (not too often) which were not enjoyed.

It reminded me of a quieter and much more serene life many years ago; a time when families interacted and entertained themselves instead of relying on television. A time when life was much gentler and certainly less complicated. I suppose I could go on, but what is the point The casserole dish is no more and neither is our youth. I guess that was the reason for my tears.

H1N1 and the Media

2009-11-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

This is just a short blog about a controversial topic that has been blown out of all proportion by our friends, the media.

This pandemic has offered another frenzied feeding to the media. They have had a wonderful time tracking every little variation of H1N1, both good and bad, predominantly bad. The result of their reporting has been responsible in the large part for the public chaos over vaccinations for H1N1.

They have whipped the population into a state of nervous confusion, especially people with children. This has resulted in huge lineups at clinics because of jammed telephone lines by people trying to get information from the local authorities. A debate in parliament followed, with the intention, so it would appear, of trying to find a culprit to which the blame can be attached. If ever there was a time when co-operation is needed between parties, this is it with a hope that cooperation will find a solution to the mess.

Personally, I don’t think anyone is to specifically blame. There has been a huge rush to create a vaccine, get it on the market and provide for people who may be ‘at risk’ of getting N1H1. It has been a combination of all these factors, plus the media, which have contributed to the current state of affairs. Also, when there is media frenzy like this, you get hundreds of people who are not in the ‘at risk’ category, managing to get the shot before anyone else and this makes for debatable headlines, too.

As I’ve mentioned before, the media does a lot of good, but they don’t achieve anything when instilling fear and despondency among people.

TO CHILKO AND BACK continued...............

2009-11-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

The following morning was bright and sunny, an invitation for us to head out to Chilko Lake (all 80 miles of it), a further 15 kilometers on from the River Lodge. When we reached the lake, a dire warning about bears being frequent visitors to the area greeted us at the entrance of the park. In accordance with the instructions posted, I insisted that wherever we were going to fish, the Jeep could not be far away. We smiled and both of us suddenly realized that while we were at home, the thought of encountering bears in the wild caused apprehension and we even enquired about bear spray! However, we arrived in the wild without bear spray and while fishing in bear country, neither one of us was at all concerned or worried.

The bears didn’t put in an appearance and we spent a marvelous 3-4 hours, the sole occupants of the Park, Denis fishing and me learning to fish – casting, that is. Actually, in retrospect, I was quite pleased with my efforts by the end of the day. We didn’t catch any fish, but that was beside the point. It was a joy just to be out there. The sun, the sky with tiny cotton wool clouds moved gently by a slight breeze, the gorgeous colours of the lake itself stretching out before us, predominantly ice blue and white as a result of the winter melt and run off; the huge snow-capped peaks towering above us and of course the endless trees – just as it all had been for thousands of years. It was spring (early June) and the entire panorama seemed to be coming alive in anticipation of summer.

We returned to the Lodge, tired out but invigorated, without fish! Unfortunately, for the rest of the holiday it was the weather, not us, that dictated the holiday activities. Denis did get some more fishing in and actually went out on the lake with Mike, the resident fishing guide. Alas, I cannot report any success.

My activity apart from writing was one afternoon of horseback riding. This was wonderful, although some of my riding skills taught so many years ago were a bit rusty. Silver, my horse, and he was a big horse (he had to be to carry me) was a dream. I thoroughly enjoyed myself just ambling behind our host in the late day’s sunshine, with Bandit, the border collie running ahead of us to ensure that we wouldn’t come upon any wildlife unexpectedly!

The holiday was so neat; we decided to stay an extra day before heading back on the long drive home. We returned the way we’d come until we got to Cache Creek where we decided to head out and investigate a new route and which, according to the map, was a gravel road. The owner of the gift shop at Cache Creek assured us that the road was recently leveled and that it would not produce any difficulties for us, particularly since we had a Jeep. So off we went into Downing Provincial Park and then up what appeared to be an unassailable mountainside. Actually, it wasn’t, but it was very steep and I was just a little concerned as the ground seemed to drop away more steeply than ever round each bend!

Coming down on the other side was much gentler and the country spread out before us, mountain after mountain, some with snow, some without, bathed in the afternoon sunshine. It was absolutely vast, breathtaking and unbelievable. On the lookout for wildlife, we saw only one black bear, but unfortunately the noise of the Jeep frightened him and he took himself off at a high speed before I could get the window down to take a picture. As we descended the road passed through some private land and we witnessed ranchers herding cattle and roping calves – fascinating – long live the Wild West.

By the time we got to Lillooet it was getting late, but we decided to press on. We followed route 99 through some steep, precipitous mountains rising on both sides from the highway which produced a strange feeling of claustrophobia. The road was good but fraught with twists and bends so you had to be on guard all the time. Finally, at about 8:00 p.m. we reached Whistler and booked in at the Holiday Inn (the first hotel we came to). We went from the sublime to the ridiculous – rustic but very comfortable living to state of the art hotel conveniences, which included a Jacuzzi; just what was needed after a long day’s journey.

The following day we got up early to finish the journey to the Ferries at Horseshoe Bay and then home to Nanaimo. It was great to see home again, but we were both sad that we couldn’t have stayed longer at Chilko.

Keywords: horse, River Lodge, bears, bear spray, Chilko Lake, Williams Lake, barbecue, crossword books, Jacuzzi, Holiday Inn, Lillooet, fishing, horseback riding

TO CHILKO AND BACK Getting to Know Beautiful British Columbia

2009-10-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

Chilko Lake beckoned seductively via Ts’yl-os Provincial Park as we sat in front of the television set. Boy, did it cast its spell over us. We both knew we had to go there and it wasn’t long before we packed ourselves up and set out.

Our first stop en route to our destination was Hell’s Gate in the Fraser Canyon. In 1808 Simon Fraser, the explorer who discovered the Fraser River, described this narrow passage as ‘an awesome gorge – the mouth of hell’ and indeed that’s what it looks like. The rock walls of the Fraser River on either side plunging down towards each other forcing the waters through a passage way only 110 feet wide. Apparently, at certain times of the year, a greater volume of water goes through the narrow gorge that is Hell’s Gate, than goes over the Niagara Falls! After looking down at the seething, boiling water, I can believe that fact to be so. Leaving Hell’s gate we continued to travel north and finally reached Williams Lake at about 7:30 p.m. and decided to find a bed there for the night.

The distances and scenery of this province are mind boggling. We had already travelled 338 miles from Vancouver to Williams Lake through lush valleys, wild mountainous scenery and through rocky, barren and desert-like vistas. It just seemed to go on and on. As the crow flies, Chilko is only 150 miles from our home, but we had travel all this way just to get to the Chilko Lake area!

From Williams Lake, the road was good, much better than I expected - a hardtop highway with gravel shoulders. With a short coffee break and lunch thrown in, it took about three hours to reach the final turn off for Chilko River Lodge. It was then I discovered to my horror that we were going to travel the remaining 50 kilometers on an gravel road. Thank goodness for the jeep. The journey was devoid of any signs of habitation or people which created for us the sense of being the only people on the planet! When we did eventually arrive at Chilko River Lodge, a warm greeting by the owners of the lodge immediately nullified our sense of desolation

As it was early June and a tad on the cool side, our hosts soon had the Yukon stove in our cabin rocking on its feet, and a barbecue on the go outside for our meal of steak which we proposed to cook. When we read the lodge brochure and noted that there was a barbecue outside each cabin, my mind ran to a sort of modified Canadian Tire barbecue, metal black with drop down working space on either side. Not a bit of it, this barbecue was much simpler!

A ring of stones marked the spot out of which arose a teepee-like creation of metal rods, held in place by a triangular metal bracket at the top. Attached to this bracket was what looked like a painted, old fashioned lavatory chain (it was, of course, your everyday chain you buy at the hardware store). The other end of this chain was secured to a metal ring surrounding one of the metal rods, thus allowing for height adjustment of the grill suspended by three wires above the stone ring. Never having seen one of these barbecues before, I was somewhat dubious as to its capabilities. I needn’t have worried; the steak was ‘par excellence’ and tasted absolutely delicious.

After dark, we retired to a cabin bathed in gaslight and we could almost believe we were back in Victorian times. There were books, cards and crosswords provided to amuse us if we so wished and it was a blessing to be without deadlines to meet and especially no telephone! We settled down to read in front of the Yukon stove with two gaslights providing illumination. Here, it was bliss.

To be continued………….

Strangers at the Ferry Terminal

2009-10-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

I only intended to take two weeks holiday but sadly, the often talked about Rufus dog went to sleep permanently, so my break turned out to be much longer than planned! Now I must really play catch-up.

To open on a happier note – something nice that happens when you least expect it. I was coming home last week on the ferry from Vancouver to Vancouver Island and completely forgetting that Friday was not the day to travel on the ferry (line-ups galore), I raced for the 3:00 p.m. sailing from Horseshoe Bay (Vancouver). It was full.

Grumbling about the frustration of it all, I drove slowly into a holding area to await repositioning for the next sailing. Two hours to kill, sitting in the car at the ferry terminal – definitely not my choice. As I was sitting there, I began to have a coughing fit – and I mean a real coughing fit, to the point where I felt I was going to be sick. I had no lozenges, no water, no candies – nothing that would assuage that miserable needle-like jab at the back of the throat which demanded I cough to get rid of it.

Suddenly, the door of the van in front of me opened; I tried to catch the eye of the driver as he got out. No luck. Fortunately, it was not long before he re-appeared and I waved to him. Just as I was getting out of the car to meet him he was there, and I explained my plight.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said, trying to suppress yet another cough, “but do you have any candies or anything to help my cough?”

“Nothing,” he replied sympathetically, ‘but wait a minute, we do have some chocolate coated almonds – I don’t know if those would be any good to you?”

I could have hugged him.

“That will be just fine,” I replied with grateful thanks. He returned to the car and came back with the candy bag out of which I helped myself to three almonds. As he was returning to his car, he was beckoned yet a second time by the driver parked on my right, just ahead of me. Returning to speak to me, he suggested that the driver of that car may be able to help me further.

It turned out that driver number two had some orange juice and he went diving into the trunk of the car to retrieve it, while I admired the two dogs who occupied the back seat.

“You really have saved my day,” I said to the driver as he returned with the juice, “thank you so very much.”

He was all smiles, I was all smiles and the driver of car number one was all smiles.

How nice strangers are in your hour of need. I certainly won’t forget that incident.

Vacation Time

2009-09-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

Just a short note to let you know that I am on holiday. Back in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, browse through past posts and enjoy. When I start posting again, there will be more of Travels with Verna and Jean, plus a variety of other subjects.

Thanks for you support and take care.

The Old Biddy

Book Review: The Shack by Wm. Paul Young

2009-09-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

Having noted one Saturday, reading the Globe and Mail best seller list, that The Shack had been a best seller for 60 weeks, I was persuaded to go to the Net to see what all the fuss was about.

There appeared to be hundreds of reviews of this book, but I just stuck with the story outline and decided it was definitely worth a read; went to Coles, purchased said book and started to read. What a book. I just couldn’t put it down.

The author gives us a story that is not shrouded in biblical allegory, but a simple and easy to understand presentation of love. Basically, the story line is about a man called Mack, who has an encounter with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit; but what an encounter. It challenged my long held views and opinions. It is funny, tragic, moving, amusing, spellbinding, sad and whatever other adjective might come to mind. It is the Holy Trinity as I had never imagined it to be. It is written for the people of today. It is family, it is power, it is understanding and above all, it is about love for everyone on this earth. It is about the kind of love that binds us all together and, if allowed to surface in people, would make the world a much better place.

It gives us an idea of how and why God makes all his decisions. The most revealing fact is that he does not make decisions for us and for the rest of humanity; that is up to us. Events happen in our lives not because God wants them to happen, or because it is going to serve a purpose for Him or because it is His will. They happen because there is evil which affects everyone. It is human beings seeking their own kind of power and independence. God is left to pick up the pieces and in His Grace he does pick up those pieces.

This is a powerful story which really makes you think, and I love stories that make me think. As I was reading, I could put myself in Mack’s shoes with all his pent up anger, negativity, loss, waffling beliefs and pain, ready to blame God for the tragedy he has suffered and the anger and pain it produced.

The book, of course, is a fictional story, but it could quite easily be very real for every one of us battling with the uncertainty of this life. The attraction of this story is that everyone can equate with the central character. We all have problems in our lives, and in this book, Mack is able to share his with God directly.

There were, in fact, many negative reviews of this book like, ‘manipulative tripe’ ‘boring’, ‘not my kind of book’, ‘same old, same old’, ‘poorly written’. After reading some of these it is revealed that the reviewers didn’t even finish the book. Why write a review when you don’t read the book? One of the many positive reviews noted that if anyone had grappled with the concept of God, they should read this book. Amen.

I am ready to start reading this story again, so that I can fully understand all the wisdom imparted and the vision of eternity we can expect.

I can only say, buy the book or borrow the book, read it and form your own opinion. Your life will feel richer for having read it.

The Old Biddy

Forget Me Not!

2009-09-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

“Come on, teatimes,” I called to Rufus, after giving his food a final stir. I sailed into the dining room and put his bowl on the table. I called again.

“Come-on, tea times”.

Why was Rufus sitting in the kitchen with a puzzled look on his face.

“Ouch,” I said to myself, picked up the bowl, and backtracked to the kitchen, putting the bowl down on ‘his’ table. No wonder the poor dog looked confused.

On another occasion, I was wrapping up the leftovers to go into the frig. Where did they end up, in the bathroom. How, oh how, could I be so stupid.

Really, these senior moments are becoming all too frequent.

It was changing sheets day and I was going to put the set of pink sheets on the bed. Trouble is, I didn’t know where the pink sheets could be found. They were not in the linen closet and I checked out the linen closet downstairs which revealed nothing. Perhaps I had put them in one of the drawers in the spare bedroom downstairs – remote, but possible - no, they were not there. In desperation I looked into the semi storage room, just in case. There was no sign of any pink sheets.

I was getting myself really worked up about these bed linens. After all, a pair of sheets and pillow cases didn’t just walk out of the house. The more I fussed, the worse the situation became. Finally, I asked my husband, somewhat tersely, if he had seen the pink sheets.

“Yes”, he said, “they’re on the bed.”

Apart from these bizarre trivialities that arrive more frequently as we grow older, there are the more delinquent problems that affect our sense of comfort. For example, going out without our teeth (partial plate) because we completely forgot about it; thus causing some whistling sounds through the teeth that are not there as we speak. There is also the most embarrassing gap in our teeth when we let our guard down and actually smile broadly

The car keys and our inability to remember where we put them can cause some screaming, and swearing; especially when we are in a hurry to go out and they are nowhere to be found and we have an appointment or deadline to meet.

Finally, there are spectacles. For most of my life I have been short-sighted and was never able to see much beyond the end of my nose without glasses, which I wore all the time. On becoming bi-focal, I took the glasses off when I wanted to read, or look at something close, but they were never far from me.

This last year I had cataracts in both eyes removed. It was such a glorious feeling to see clearly into the far distance again; I felt liberated. I knew before the operation that I would have to wear glasses for reading, but had temporarily forgotten about this on a shopping spree shortly after my last operation.

I went to buy some clothes and no matter how hard I tried to decipher the price and size tag, nothing less than putting the garment on the floor, and then zooming in on it until I could see would suffice.

This incident precipitated a furious round of activity to equip myself with reading glasses to be placed strategically around the house. Not for me glasses on a chain around my neck. If anything dates you it was specs on a chain around your neck. I did try, but the glasses either slipped out of the chain holders or I caught the chain on something and it broke.

I now have glasses in the den, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, lounge, dining room and handbag. Yet still, I walk from room to room carrying or wearing the specs and then leaving them in the destination room. When I return to the original room and can’t find them all hell breaks loose and my blood pressure shoots way up high.

So life goes on, and does ‘forget me not’ get any better – no, I don’t think so. It goes with the territory and we have to devise a plan. I’ll let you know when I have one.

The Old Biddy

Greyhound

2009-09-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

“What are these people going to do when the Olympics arrive?” asked the bewildered American gentleman (from New York) with a hint of humour.

The American was behind me in a line-up waiting to buy a ticket for a bus trip. We were two of the twenty or so people lined up at the Greyhound desk at the Vancouver Bus Terminus. There were two agents selling tickets and each ticket sale took anywhere from a couple of minutes to sometimes ten minutes, depending upon the customer’s command of the English language and the complexity of the journey being undertaken, re: connections, etc. Seeing my frustration, my daughter-in-law offered to take my place at the end of the line up, while I enjoyed time with my granddaughter.

Just before she and I changed places, one of the two agents put the ‘ closed’ announcement in front of his wicket and disappeared. After watching this scenario from a distance I couldn’t stand it any longer and went to speak to the remaining ticket agent after one passenger had finished at the wicket. I asked why there was only one person to serve 20 + people who it appeared may, or may not, catch their respective buses given the snail’s pace processing of the passengers. The agent was obviously a junior and had little experience in dealing with this old battleaxe who bore down on him to question Greyhound’s agent efficacy.

I won’t go into the details of my conversation with him especially after I was told that agents were entitled to their breaks!
“What breaks?” I demanded, “when 20+ people are waiting to buy tickets, hoping to catch their bus?”

Returning to my American friend just behind me, he asked what I recognized as a realistic question. He assured me that the attitude in the bus station was indicative of the attitude throughout British Columbia. Customer care and satisfaction by most businesses, especially Greyhound, was laid back and casual.

He noted that there were no express ticket machines where people could insert a credit card, select their destination and buy a ticket. This is unbelievable when you can go to a hugely busy international airport like Vancouver and purchase a ticket from a machine to practically anywhere in the world. You can even shop by machine in a grocery store, but certainly not with Greyhound – no way!

The one group of people I exclude from any criticism of Greyhound, is their drivers. They are excellent. However, there are many things Greyhound can do to improve their customer service in the terminus. Leaving the unions and their coffee breaks out of it would be a good start.

What, I ask, are the paying customers going to do when they want to go to Whistler by bus in 2010? I think Greyhound and the B.C. Olympic Games Organizers, need to take this kind of ‘outstanding lack of service’ by a national carrier, into account.

If this happens in Vancouver, how are customers going to cope with other bus services in British Columbia who plan to serve the Olympics?

P.S. Quite a part from alternative methods of staffing which would solve customer problems, there is a small matter of common sense. Of course people deserve their breaks, but can’t common sense prevail with these individuals? Can’t they plan their breaks after the line-ups diminish? Or does Greyhound not have a Common Sense 101 course?

.

A Different Kind of Holiday - to Newfie Land

2009-09-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

A recent vacation to Newfoundland saw us arriving very early a.m. into Port Aux Basques on the overnight car ferry from Cape Breton.

What a contrast to the UK – we actually saw vast amounts of space around us (once we had cleared the ferry terminal that is). In the UK there’s hardly any space left!

There were signposts on the highway talking of places many hundreds of kilometres away; we rarely get beyond double figures in England, otherwise we would end up driving into the sea.

To cap it all, somewhere en route to Gander we came to a sign saying “Mooseburgers, 63 Km”! Either they were a long way off, or they were mighty big burgers, we mused to ourselves.

Unfortunately, there are so few primary places to visit. Each day in our respective B&Bs, everyone we talked with was either going to, or had been to, the same place(s). We were arriving at places hundreds of Kms away knowing what was on the menu.

A competition began over one breakfast as to whom had seen the most moose in NFL so far. Some people from central Canada won the game, but we suspected they weren’t the kind of guys to be beaten and that they were counting sightings from earlier visits too in order to score maximum points. We lost because we’d only encountered two by that stage, and the “winner” had amoosed 27! No contest.

Then there were the highway re-construction zones, or road works as we call them in England; armies of people and machinery blitzing the landscape, a scene from Thunderbirds. If they did projects that size on UK roads, the country would seize up and everyone would cry off work (even more than usual). We don’t even have machinery that big at home. For example, we still de-ice aircraft with a thumb over the end of a hose to make it squirt a bit faster!

The guide books said there was no fruit available in NFL – but we found the world’s most expensive banana at Deer Lake and had to cash in an extra Amex cheque to purchase same. We tried to make the banana last three days, but it wasn’t too good after twelve hours, even after using full aircon in the car and lodging the banana by one of the air vents. Anything more than stage two on the fan started to break up the fruit.

Fantastic accent the natives of NFL have; and such warm people too, but we couldn’t understand what the true locals were saying so heaven alone knows what we’ve said yes or no to during the conversations! I keep looking at my credit card statements just in case we inadvertently bought a house or something. We did manage to extract the word “partridgeberry” from the experience. This, to a UK national, conjures up imaginative pictures of preserves adorned with feathers plus a wary eye looking forlornly out at you from a jam jar. Weird! Reminded me of a sign on the back of a car I once saw – “Preserve wildlife, pickle a squirrel”.

One could go on for ever – NFL was perhaps the most “different” place we have ever visited and a return trip would definitely be considered. Twillingate, in particular, was charming providing icebergs and wildlife in abundance; the only place we’ve been to where the term “moving house” means loading your large chalet onto a raft and taking it to the other side of the bay.

Now that says it all!

David F,
England.

How Not To Buy a BBQ

2009-09-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was at Canadian Tire with Don, my husband, who wanted to buy a replacement bulb for our security light. I said I would wait in the car. That was my first mistake, letting him into Canadian Tire on his own. After all, he is a man, and Canadian Tire has hardware and neat tools (although I could never see anything neat about looking at tools and car stuff – definitely a man thing).

Anyway, after I had almost finished reading the car manual, he reappeared, bulb in one hand and a very nice looking aluminum suitcase in the other hand.

“Look what I bought”, he announced with some satisfaction. “The regular price was $49.95 and I got it for only $14.95”. It really was a nice set of BBQ tools and accessories but the thing is we don’t have a BBQ, but what the heck, it was on sale!

Our son Dan and his girlfriend, Candace came over for the weekend. Don showed Dan this neat tool set he bought for a ‘song’. Dan asked him if he was going to buy a BBQ.

“Yes one day”, said Don.

I should mention here that we got rid of our old BBQ many years ago because Don ‘really didn’t like BBQing’. Why he suddenly liked the idea again, enough to buy a set of BBQ tools, I have no idea. Perhaps it was the BBQed wieners he kept saying were so good when BBQed at the model airplane field. If wieners were what Don had in mind, a Hibachi would have worked just as well.

Dan suggested that Dad should buy the BBQ now so that he could help him get it home. Off they went and, of course, they found another deal. Father and son came home with this humongous BBQ. Bearing in mind there is just the two of us, this thing has six burners, with a hot plate on one side, to boil the kettle I suppose. On the other side is a pull up shelf, and a bottle opener. Do they even make bottles any more that aren’t screw top? But, hey, just in case they do, Don is ready.

He informs me he will do all the cooking and he even went out and paid full price for a BBQ cookbook. So far we have had two salmon steaks and a couple of pieces of chicken and, of course, zucchinis. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any sauce I like, so I made my own BBQ sauce which is excellent; it contains alcohol. I now have many different kinds of spices etc, because the book says you have to use them. Funny thing, though, Don doesn’t like steak and I thought that was what a BBQ was all about.

One last thing, our old BBQ had a rotisserie on which I used to BBQ roasts, chickens and turkey, etc. This monster has a place to put a rotisserie, but we can’t find one long enough that will fit from end to end. That’s probably why this monstrosity was so cheap. Not to be outdone, Don phoned the manufacturer back east and for $100 they will send him a rotisserie. This BBQ is definitely not the bargain he thought it was.

There has to be a moral to this story somewhere! Maybe it is ‘never let your husband shop at Canadian Tire alone! Ah well, until the next time.

Biddy Jean

Rumblings Over The Blue Bridge

2009-09-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

Rumblings are reaching the City of Nanaimo about the plight of the Johnson Street Bridge in Victoria. I live in Nanaimo, but for many years I lived on the Saanich Peninsula and in Victoria and still have a very soft spot for Southern Vancouver Island where I visit now and then. During my time in Victoria, for a couple of years I was commuting daily between Esquimalt and downtown Victoria, over the Johnson Street Bridge. It is with these memories that I offer my opinion on the current dilemma.

It appears that the City of Victoria suddenly decided, in April of this year, that it might be a good idea to apply for some of this infrastructure money the Federal Government has hanging around. But they needed an infrastructure to address. What better than the Johnson Street Bridge? Prior to that date the Johnson Street Bridge was not in council’s plans, never mind on the agenda.

In three short months, the City moved at the speed of a bullet; estimates were calculated, tenders went out, consultants hired, designs drawn up and application for funding prepared and finalized. I really would like to see any city, not just Victoria, act with such speed and alacrity because they had found a toy to spend money on.

In the meantime, some concerned citizens became aware of what was going on and decided that they really had to put a spoke in City Council’s wheel, before it could do any more damage. After all, this was a heritage structure under fire – a utilitarian structure but most definitely historical. Quite rightly, this concerned citizen’s group of Victoria wanted to know why Victorians had not been consulted. The City did schedule public input, but only after the investment was approved.

In the meantime, this group worked very hard to bring this venture to the notice of the rest of the Victoria citizenry. Now many more people are talking about the possible fate of this old faithful. Apparently, even the City is having to recognize and accept that Victorians are worried and want to have their say about this monumental plan. So, why not a referendum allowing the public to get on board and make an informed vote?

I am always amazed when people mention to me that England and Europe must be wonderful, historical places with all those buildings hundreds, and some cases, thousands of years old – and we have nothing like that here in Canada. Come on, City Hall, get with it. Would you consider replacing the Empress, or the Parliament Buildings, or Craigdarroch Castle. I think not. Why pick on the Johnson Street Bridge? Oh, I know why, but funding can still be obtained for refurbishing so that the bridge is good for another 40 to 50 years. The dollar difference between refurbishing the Blue Bridge and bringing in the wrecking ball to allow for a new design structure, could be used for more desperately needed infrastructure work in the City of Victoria.

Long live the old bridge.

Don't Mess with God

2009-08-31T21:43:00.000-07:00

Last week, Wednesday, August 26th, the opening of the B.C. Legislature took place. Prior to the official opening, there was a brief time of prayer for the government and the work it has set for itself.

I heard about this on the CBC Early Edition with Rick Cluff asking if it was appropriate to open the Opening of the Legislature with such a practice? The following day comments poured in.

“This kind of thing should never be allowed”, “Was it warranted?” “I thought it was rather pleasant”, etc. etc. All those for and against weighed in.

As I was listening to this, I realized that this practice had probably been used at every opening of the Legislature for a number of years. This point was borne out later by Rick’s guest the following day who confirmed that opening with a prayer has been the tradition since the first Legislature sat in B.C. I was asking myself why the appropriateness of the practice should suddenly be questioned now? If the Legislature feels that it must appeal to a higher power to guide its path in government decisions and policies, then so be it.

Listener replies were many and varied, the main question being the necessity of separating the church and the state. John Redekop a visiting professor from Trinity Western University assured listeners that there was no constitutional law or legal requirement in Canada to separate church and state. That prerogative was left to our neighbours in the south.

There was also the remark that we all prayed to the same God who not only listens to prayers as rendered on Wednesday, but also sanctions suicide attacks on innocent people. The professor hastened to assure us that the latter was not the God of his faith.

Surely the above is all perception – a faith or collective peoples’ opinion of what their God would have them do, not necessarily what God wants them to do.

What was intoned in prayer to God on Wednesday was something that we British Columbians all hope for, so what is the point of questioning the practice.

Benjamin Disraeli once said, “Never Complain and Never Explain”. What a fantastic piece of advice for all of us.

As the learned professor said, there should be no marginalizing of different faiths. What I say is that we should get on with the business of non-condemnation for those who hold different ideas from the ones we hold. Whether atheist, agnostic, Christian, Jew, Hindi, Muslim, Buddhist and with all due deference to the many other faiths not mentioned, respect other people’s views and religions, go about your own business, but don’t mess with God.

ORGANIZATION – OLD CODGER STYLE

2009-08-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

If you have two items on a shopping list, I’m still thinking in terms of taking about half an hour to accomplish the tasks. Not so as the years move on; especially not if the trip involves a husband. Today, as well as the two items listed, we had to stop at the bank to sign a form, which would probably take a couple of minutes. Anything involving Denis immediately places the expedition in danger, so we need a half hour (or longer) planning session to figure out where we are going and what we are going to do. In fact the entire operation makes planning for a trek to the Himalayas looks like child’s play.

Naturally, dog had to come too, since Rufus refuses to accept the term ‘guard the house’. The first call, the bank, went very smoothly and when we returned to the car, I mentioned to Denis that the next stop was Fabricland to get a zipper. I also explained that he would wait while I purchased said zip and then I would take dog and walk to Superstore, while he went by car. I shouldn’t even have mentioned it as it took the whole of the car journey to Fabricland for Denis to understand what was about to happen.

Zip was purchased, I collected dog from car and off we went on our separate ways. I walked to the front of the store by the disabled parking lots but was beaten by Denis who not only swooped into a spot, but promptly reversed and went back the way he had come – at great speed, I might add.

“I paid for the gas”, he called from the car window, “but forgot to put the gas in the tank – won’t be long”. Rufus and I stood there with our mouths hanging open – has it really come to this?

When Denis arrived back to the gas pump, there was a car occupying the space by his pump, but of course the pump wouldn’t start. The attendant in the office told him that she saw him leave without filling the car and immediately turned the pump off. So, it fell to Denis to explain to the two people getting quite exasperated at the pump, that they had to move to another pump so that he could fill his car with the gas he forgot to put in on his first trip!

Finally he returned with a full tank of gas and we managed to shop without further incident, except that I couldn’t get the prescription I wanted, and we had to go to another store.

It was there, while waiting for the prescription to be filled, that I sat talking to a 90 year old, who, in my estimation, looked 70. She had quietly been waiting for at least 20 minutes for someone to give her some information. We commiserated about how long it took to do something these days. She was also bemoaning the fact that every time he saw her, her son-in-law was on her case about what to eat and what not to eat, plus the fact that she should come off all medication! She retorted on all occasions that obviously she was eating the right thing to get to the age she was and she saw no necessity to change.

As we entered the parking lot of the next pit stop Denis suddenly started to drill me about the Stilton Cheese.

“Did you get the Stilton at Superstore”, he asked. “No”, I said, I thought you were going to do that. “ No, I forgot to do it, would you mind to buy some Stilton in Thrifty’s”. And so it goes on.

What should have been a half hour shopping trip, turned into a whole morning nightmare.

Smile

2009-08-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

A post today to remind ourselves that this short poem is very important. It's important to our well-being and to the well-being of others. If anything can lift a spirit, it's a smile.

Smile

Smiling is infectious
You catch it like the flu
When someone smiled at me today
I started smiling too

I passed around the corner
And someone saw my grin
When he smiled I realised
I’d passed it on to him

I thought about that smile
Then realised its worth
A single smile just like mine
Could travel round the earth

So if you feel a smile begin
Don’t leave it undetected
Let’s start an epidemic soon
And get the world infected

NM from Wales, UK

Beliefs

2009-08-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt from a booklet written about changing a poor self image. We, as old biddies have probably made up our minds a long time ago on the issues discussed in this booklet. I was asked to talk about this booklet to a gathering of about 45 seniors and was extremely apprehensive because seniors were not my target audience. Surprisingly, afterwards everyone bought a copy. They didn’t want it for themselves, they wanted it for their children and grandchildren.

Beliefs

Whether we admit it or not, the one part of our life that has a profound influence on the way we think is our belief system. Take a few minutes to consider the following before flatly refusing to acknowledge that anyone, other than yourself, is responsible for your destiny.

Decide if you (we're not talking other people, we are talking you) believe that you hold the key to your own destiny and peace of mind, or whether God does?

Think about the enormity of that choice because it will affect every facet of your life in the future.

Ask yourself if you have a personal code of ethics to guide you along the way because you will need it, if your choice is to go it alone. This code might have headings such as ‘personal conduct’, ‘accountability’ and ‘commitment’, etc.

Ask yourself about the future and how you are going to conduct it by yourself. Think carefully. It is an awesome undertaking to be totally responsible for the rest of your life.

Determine if you are going to make yourself the person around whom your world revolves. Will you be the person who makes all the decisions, calls all the shots, and expects everything to fall into place immediately?

Decide if you will be forever seeking material things which you believe will bring you happiness and satisfaction, or, is there another choice?

Determine also if skills and knowledge, to the exclusion of all else, are going to provide you with the contentment you are seeking.

The above is just one part of one of the subject areas that affect our lives. The idea behind the booklet is not for me to play psychiatrist, but to nudge recognition of a problem by individuals, which will encourage them to seek professional help if needed.

The other subject areas are:

- The other side of beliefs
- Writing down your problems
- People
- Making connections
- Improve your people image
- Attitude
- Self awareness
- Acceptance
- For more information, please go to www.snosrappublishing.com

Let me know whether you would like to hear about the other side of beliefs.

Beautiful Madness: One Man's Journey Through Other Peoples' Gardens by James Dodson, Dutton Publishers, 2006

2009-08-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

This is an enjoyable, chatty book that follows Dodson on his year of garden discovery. A must for the garden lovers.

Dodson lives in the north of Maine on a hillside where winters are very Canadian (subzero cold) and summer is at best seven weeks long. Apparently, he has tried to ignore that and build an English garden full of tender perennials – a true test of a garden masochist. Each summer he works in a frenzy trying to get everything as he would like it, spending hours and pots of money in the process, only to weep at the winter kill and proceed to envision new plantings the next summer.

His garden centre owner/friend suggested he take a year to be nosy in other people’s gardens and get a horticultural education, So he did, beginning with the Philadelphia Flower Show in March. His journalism skills and contacts brought him to Walt and Linda Fisher who force bulbs of all kinds over the winter to bloom all together in a great crescendo for the Show. From there it was a hop skip and a jump to other gardeners, other gardens and other shows, the famous Chelsea Flower Show being one of them.

One poignant chapter relates his visit to Sweet Alice Brown, an old friend of his mother’s. All her life she had loved her garden and her flowers, but was now in a nursing home suffering from slight dementia. Dodson remembers the riot of plants around her little blue cottage and offers to take her by to see it again. When they get there, he sees scrappy grass, a rusted Monte Carlo, sagging porches, and a chained yellow dog – nothing much left of the garden’s former glory. All that remains is two redbud trees. At her urging, he quickly digs one up (distracting the dog with the remains of his takeout milkshake) and they make a quick getaway.

This is a book for those who love to garden, and for those who love reading about gardens. Dodson has a conversational style that carries you along from page to page, garden to show to gardener to wonderful new discoveries. He invests himself in every scene and anecdote in such a way that you get to know who he is and the enthusiasm he brings to his investigations. His final story in the book is about visiting his mother’s house, long since sold to strangers, to spread her dog’s ashes. Great ending to a most enjoyable book.

THEY WOULDN'T DARE!

2009-08-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning as I was getting ready for the day, I heard the following story on CBC. It made me mad – and I decided to put it on the old biddy blog to see what other people thought.

The gist of the story is about a baby deer found near the dead body of its mother outside the town of Ucluelet in B.C. five years ago. Janet Schwartz, of Ucluelet, adopted the baby deer and raised it as a pet. Bimbo and Janet have become firm friends over the past five years.

Suddenly, out of the blue, along comes the Ministry of the Environment; not one month, or one year after this adoption occurred, but FIVE years later, and decrees that the deer must be returned to the wild! Where, oh where is common sense?

I have to agree with the Ministry that wild animals should not be kept as pets, but I have to ask what it has done in the past with real wild animals, lions, tigers and snakes, particularly pythons, smuggled into the province and kept in cages as pets; animals who pose a huge danger to people if they escape?

In this case, why did the government not intervene five years ago? I suspect they didn’t know anything about the situation and they only know now probably through the tales of a pious know-it-all neighbour or individual, or possibly one of these rabid environmentalists who cannot make any kind of exception to any rule.

I am outraged on a number of fronts, not the least of which is severing the bond between animal and human that has been forged over the last five years. I doubt that Bimbo could ever be rehabilitated and returning her to the wild is returning her to an environment fraught with dangers for her. She is absolutely no threat to the general public I agree with Janet that the separation of deer and human is not an option. The ‘damage’ such as it is, has been done, and the ministry should now butt out and leave the matter well alone.

You can find more detail about this report by going to www.cbc.ca/bc Select under headlines on left hand side, ‘bc woman fights to keep deer at home’.

On the Road Again with Verna

2009-08-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

..............continued from last post

We finally made it to Ruth and Bill’s. Bill met us on the road, as he said he would and escorted us to the house. We had a great time there, played a lot of bridge and toured the area in his rebuilt 1939 car. I should mention, this is where our cameras came out and we managed to actually take pictures of some people. This was good, otherwise we would have ended up with numerous pictures of wheat fields, which would have gone nicely with my pictures of stunted trees!

After a very pleasant visit with Ruth and Bill, we took off from their house and made our way to the Yellowhead Highway and Prince George; Verna to visit her brother, and me to visit my sister-in-law. The only unplanned incident we had on the way to Prince George was the matter of gas. We followed one of those signs that say ‘Gas Ahead’. I might suggest to our readers, that when you see a sign that says ‘Gas Ahead’, unless you can actually see the garage, don’t go. I thought at the time we didn’t have much choice, but I since realized that we probably had enough gas for another one hundred miles.

Off we went following the signs along a side road. We seemed to travel for an eternity until we finally saw a house with a sign that said ‘GAS’. There were no pumps in sight, or people, so we drove round the back of the house. A young girl came out and directed us to where the one pump was. This was Alberta, so maybe you can have your own gas pump!

With a full tank of gas, we left the gas ‘house’ and instead of turning back the way we came we just carried on into unknown territory. Again, it was another long journey until we came to a house where a man and a lady were working in their yard. I stopped the car and asked the fellow if he could tell us how to get back on the Highway. He went into a lot of turn here, go half a mile, turn left etc. Finally, frustrated, his wife came over to us and said “Don’t listen to him, he will only get you lost. Men don’t understand how woman think”. So she told him to get into the car and lead us back on to the highway, and he did. We really liked that lady.

The rest of the trip was uneventful but very funny. However, this involved relatives so we won’t go into that; you’ll just have to take my word that it was funny.

Will tell you about our trip to Penticton next time.

Biddy Jean

Old Biddy Days Off

2009-08-04T16:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends:

Even old biddies who are supposed to organize everything, do everything and remember everything, need a break sometimes. For the next seven days, this is my break. See you shortly with a continuation of On The Road Again.

Thank you muchly for your support.

Old Biddy Susan

On the Road Again with Verna

2009-08-04T15:54:00.001-07:00

I decided it was time my oldest friend Verna, met my ‘old’ friend Ruth. Ruth and Bill lived in a Trailer Court just south of Edmonton. As usual, we had done nothing in the way of planning before we set off, except to get a few directions. I don’t really know why people give us directions because we never use them. Our friends seem to think we are renowned navigators and so should be able to follow simple directions. If that was true, we would just have to be told to turn right at the Big Red Barn. Those are the kind of directions we can follow, sometimes.

Once in Vancouver, I suggested we take the road through Port Coquitlam, Maple Ridge etc., rather than the Freeway straight out to Hope. We figured the back way would be much less boring than the Freeway. It all sounded simple enough and we would avoid a lot of traffic. I could always dream! I lived in Coquitlam for 29 years but who would have thought in the last 10 years since we left a whole new city had grown up. So eventually, being women and not men, we did ask for directions and managed to follow enough of them to get us on our way.

We got off the ferry at about 10:00a.m., and should have been over the Coquihalla before supper. As it was, we only arrived at Hope in the late afternoon. We had spent so much time finding our way out of Vancouver, instead of taking the Freeway, but what fun would that have been?

Getting out of Hope was a little easier than getting out of Vancouver. We only had to ask a service station guy once for directions to the Coquihalla and he just pointed over our shoulders at the very large sign that said ‘this way’. Not in those words, but you know what I mean.

Once over the Coquihalla, we took a secondary highway to avoid Calgary. We were getting close and weren’t sure (surprise) which was the road to Bill and Ruth’s place. A phone call to Bill and he said, turn on to such n’ such a road and follow it to their place and he would meet us at the road into the trailer park. We came to what looked like a good road, but couldn’t find a name on it. However, we figured this was the road Bill meant. We just went for miles and miles and the farms got further and further apart. The two of us reflected how many trailer parks, unprotected on the ‘bald’ prairie, had been flattened in tornados and we decided this is not right road. So, we turned around and went back to the main road.

Following the highway for a short distance, we saw ahead of us about six or eight RCMP officers with three or four police cars. Obviously, there was a serious problem for the RCMP. We just pulled into their ‘Road Block’. I mean people are usually pulled over at a road block, you don’t go into one! They really looked puzzled, like what the heck were these two old biddies doing? One officer came over to the car and I asked him if he knew where “such n’ such a road was. He pointed to a matter of yards from where they had set up their road block. Again, there was a nice big sign telling us that this was the road we wanted. As we pulled away, looking back we could see all these officers scratching their heads and smiling.

To be continued............

Biddy Jean

DOWN MEMORY LANE

2009-07-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

With reference to the previous post, I can almost hear, “Oh, that’s the kind of thing I would do!” In fact, a friend mentioned this morning when I met her, “Susan,” she said, “I can’t count the number of times I can identify with that situation.”

In this post, I thought I would like to offer re-assurance for those of us who think that because we take the milk carton to the bathroom, instead of the frig, we really are losing it!

About 15 years ago, I attended a seminar on “Your Memory”, in the hope that I would find some answers to my forgetfulness. In many respects the seminar was just what I expected, but from another angle it was quite outstanding. The particular explanation I heard concerning forgetfulness and memory as we get older has stayed with me to this day; and, in my advancing years, given me great comfort.

The speaker likened our brain to the hard disc drive of a computer. When we first begin to use the computer, it is very fast because it is a brand new hard drive with very little on it. The more we use it and the longer we have it, the slower it becomes as we ask the computer to retrieve information from the hard drive. To grant our request, the computer must sort through hundreds and thousands of files and material resident on its hard drive; so it takes a tad longer to get the answer.

So it is with our brain. The older we get, the more difficult it becomes to enunciate and retrieve information from our brain. If it is difficult for a computer to find material in less than one second, can you imagine the pressure on our brains which hold a life time of data – much more than a small computer could ever hold.

So we mumble or grumble, or to be honest, curse and swear because we cannot think of the word we want to use; somebody’s name, or even worse, where we had put something away for safety! Remember, this is all quite normal and not an indication of an underlying serious problem. No, we are not getting senile.

This explanation provided to me by the ‘Memory” seminar all those years ago, has served me very well indeed and I just wanted to pass it along to you as a reminder.

STUPIDITY

2009-07-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

I have been intrigued with the 'Musings of the Old Biddy'. I don't know what the male of the species is called, but never mind, we should be allowed to have our say. There are many examples of 'Old Timers' not quite with it. I wasn’t quite with it recently, and I couldn’t believe I could be so stupid.

I like to experiment with cooking and recently made a steak and kidney pudding which I used to love as a child in England. However, having gone to town with the ingredients, I had so much steak and kidney left over I thought I would make a stew. With my stews, I always like to have dumplings, large and fluffy dumplings, so I set about making them. Out came my scales to measure the ingredients for dumplings and I weighed 3 ounces of shredded suet and put that into a dry pudding basin. Next, I added a pinch of salt and thoroughly mixed the suet and salt together. Then came the all purpose flour and I measured out 6 ounces of flour.

During this time, the simmering steak and kidney stew was making me feel very hungry. I quickly mixed the contents in the pudding basin with sufficient water to bind the dumplings. This is a bit of a messy palaver; the mixed dough had to be molded into balls the size of.....well it doesn't matter too much..... if you like dumplings you can make them large or small. After boosting the simmering stew to boiling point, I carefully forked my balls of dough into the stew.

After 25 minutes of cooking time, I eagerly served up my stew with my light-as-a-feather dumplings. Biting into one of them, I nearly broke my teeth! My, oh my, what had happened? My dumplings were just as hard as cannon balls. Had my mind temporarily lapsed? Where had I gone wrong?

Pondering the whole matter, my eyes roamed around the kitchen and came to rest on the scales and I was mortified. There was the carefully measured flour still on the scales. I had forgotten to add the flour! Will I ever live that down?

D.P. The Old Timer

Rufus

2009-07-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

My shadow, as black as a crow, finds his step in tune with my own.

Eyes, the shade of arbutus in the sun, know the path by heart where we will walk.

Morning reaches down into the damp woods and lays gently her warm blanket down.

Seagulls scream for unknown desires; the geese parade along the edge of the water.

The heron hunts for its next meal with a stealthy eye.

All these things will still be tomorrow.

Dog stops to ponder the moment with pure of heart and an uncomplicated mind.

He comes to sit at my feet as I rest.

The seagulls disappear into the sky with the rising sun and the geese head back to quieter places.

The heron lifts off with hesitant wings to wait for another day.

My shadow, light as angel wings, walks beside me.

His dark chocolate eyes can see the truth and nothing more.

All these things will still be tomorrow.

But none will last as long as the bond between us.

Love without words, loyalty without bounds and shadows without darkness.

Dog, with coat as black as night, brings light to my eyes.

And I am grateful for the warmth in my life.

Nearly Biddy

Ava

The Black Dog and Blue Fly

2009-07-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

Lulu, her muzzle bearing tell-tale signs of extra rich strawberry ice cream, sat in her usual position between the two front seats of the car balanced on the gear shaft casing. Her lovely beady brown eyes darted expectantly between Mother and Granny, hoping that more ice-cream was coming her way. She was a beautiful, if somewhat podgy Doberman Pinscher with her black coat glistening in the sunlight. She was enjoying her 'treat' after a long run on the beach and a swim in the sea - a feast of ice cream at the local cafe car park, generously offered by her doting owner and owner's mother (Granny).

Reluctantly she noted that preparations were being made to leave and therefore ice cream gorging had ended for the afternoon. She settled herself comfortably on her towel on the back seat of the car ready for the journey home. It was a hot day, so all the windows were open allowing a breeze, although not very cool, to circulate around Lulu and humans as the car moved off.

Shortly the car drew up at traffic lights, adjacent to a market stall. Between the market stall and the car stood a rather nervous looking older lady clutching her bicycle, waiting for the lights to change. Mother and Granny promptly christened her 'Nervous Nelly'.

Suddenly, there was a high pitched yelp as Lulu leapt onto a startled Granny's lap with a thud. This unexpected action unleashed a whole chain of unexpected events. Overcome with shock on hearing the yelp, Nervous Nelly nearly jumped out of her skin momentarily releasing her bicycle which fell over onto the nearest market stall loaded with oranges.

While Mother was trying to calm Granny and Dog, there was an angry shout as a precariously balanced crate of oranges, dislodged by the falling bicycle smashed onto the pavement. Oranges cascaded out of the crate and rolled all over the street.

Two volunteers from the crowd gathering to see what was going on, went to help the owner of the stall collect the oranges. Unfortunately, one of the volunteers stood on an orange which split and he slipped. He put his hand out to grab the nearest thing to steady him which was hosepipe used to produce a gentle spray to refresh the produce. As he grabbed the hose it was wrenched out of the socket in the wall and the water, which had been carefully controlled into a slow steady trickle for the purpose of watering, now gushed on to the assembled crowd.

As Mother glanced out of the corner of her eye and saw the mounting chaos in the square, the traffic lights turned to green and she decided that discretion was the better part of valour as she moved her foot onto the accelerator. She didn't want to be around to witness the next turn of events.

When they arrived home, Mother was determined to find out what made Lulu jump into Granny's lap. She didn’t have very far to look. There, on the back window ledge of the car was a large, exhausted bluebottle fly in its death throes. She knew, only too well that if Lulu encountered a fly the very worst was to be anticipated. Given freedom of space, the dog would beat a hasty retreat from the vicinity of the wretched fly - she just couldn't stand them. Any encounter between dog and fly encouraged human involvement to dispatch the fly at the earliest opportunity; a bit difficult in the confined space of a car.

The people in the market square thought they had problems being soaked to the skin and picking up oranges. They just didn't know how lucky they were that Lulu's preference was to jump on Granny's lap instead of out of the window!

AN OLD BIDDY'S BOOK REVIEW

2009-07-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Holford GL Diet By Patrick Holford

Today is useful information day. At least I think it useful, you may not. Patrick Holford was recommended to me by my sister, so I promptly went to the library and picked up his books. His platform is excellent – use food instead of medicine and his Low GL diet appealed because it involved eating lots of fruit and vegetables which I love. The ‘GL’ is the abbreviation for Glycemic Load and there is no need for a detailed explanation, until you read the book.

Some of you may have read my feelings on various diets in ‘The Day The Scales Crashed’ in a previous post. But, I decided a couple of weeks ago that an attempt on another diet was in order, hence my decision to invest in the above book.

I started out in fine fettle, spending an enormous amount of money on the foods the author recommended. Basically, I had to eat mainly fruit, vegetables and protein in the form of chicken or fish to begin with; carbohydrates were supplied in the form of oats, oat cakes and pumpernickel bread. Forget it!

With the size of the servings I was supposed to consume, I became aware that Mr. Holford was catering to the foodaholics who consumed copious amounts of food before switching diets. For them, the quantity of servings in the diet would perhaps be more in keeping with the amount they previously ate and consequently less of a shock to their systems.

Oats as a cereal are not a problem; as oatcakes they are ghastly in my book and pumpernickel bread is like eating sawdust. That really is the only real criticism of the diet I have.

Unfortunately, cooking for me is a complete waste of time and after labouring over what seemed to be ‘cordon bleu’ recipes for main dishes, common sense told me that, upon analysis, they were just plain protein and vegetable tarted up.

The GL diet is basically a good nutritious diet, set out in detail with all the benefits, menus, recipes, exercise recommendations, balancing blood sugar, etc., in good comprehensive form.

My own problems are simply, as I have emphatically stated, quite personal. I don’t like wasting time cooking, the portions are far too large for me and I am not amenable in any way to oatcakes and pumpernickel bread.

There is another problem that has nothing to do with any of the above. I have discovered that I have a food allergy to sugar and that includes sugar in overly sweet fruits. The amount of sugar I consume directly affects my asthma and I cannot afford to mess around with anything containing an excessive amount of sugar, much as I love fruits.

Incidentally, the expense incurred for the initial shopping expedition was hefty because I needed to stock up. This is not an ongoing high expense diet.

I would certainly recommend that you read this book. It is available at the library, so have a look see and then if you are interested, buy the book. The diet is good, nutritious and sensible and I am continuing with it with some modifications as per the problems outlined above.

Good reading, good cooking and good eating.

Group Aims to Enjoy Life

2009-07-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

The Red Hat Society began in 1998 when Sue Ellen Cooper started giving her friends a red hat and a copy of "Warning", a poem about a woman in purple clothing and a red hat. The significance of this was to remind them that life is short and every day is a gift that needs to be celebrated.

In no time, a group formed to simply enjoy life and each other, and the Society has taken off. There are hundreds of thousands of members all over the U.S. and Canada who enjoy getting together, and one of the results of getting together is the book Eat Dessert First!

Once I opened this book, I found lots of recipes that called to me, sang to me, and lured me down calorie lane. I had to photocopy some of them, only for personal study though so I did not infringe copyright law. One I will have to try is Auntie Joyce's Wine Biscuits, as we always seem to have one or two half-finished bottles of wine that we just can't pour out even though we don't like it.

Many of the recipes reflect the American penchant for making dishes using mixes and other packaged items. The Cake Mix Cinnamon Rolls look pretty good in the photograph. I tried them out and, yes indeed, they were yummy. I don't know how they are after a day out of the oven as there were no crumbs left to test.

Gloria Novak
For The Oceanside Star

This quick review of East Dessert First – oh, those decadent calories, reminds us of two very important facts. First, as we grow older, we need to socialize and enjoy life. Some of us, myself included, tend to cocoon ourselves in the house. The other reminder is that there is a book out there with recipes for unmentionable dessert calories which we need to look at, buy, or borrow from the library – to heck with the calories. Why should we bother about such nonsense at our age. After all, once in a while……………….

The Road Trips: South and West Vancouver Island In Two Days Flat!

2009-07-11T10:28:00.001-07:00

Verna’s husband passed away 10 plus years ago. Since then, my good friend Verna and I have taken a road trip somewhere every year. Don, my husband, is quite happy for me to go on these trips, just as I am happy to see him go snowboarding in the winter. We do manage to get away together at some time during the year. However, this year I am not so sure because he has all those zucchinis to look after.

Back to the trip with Verna; we always take our cameras along for the ride. Halfway through the trip we decide we should really take some pictures and we do, just once. For example, I have several picture of stunted trees in Alberta and Verna has many pictures of sand formations we saw at a rest stop. That is about the extent of our picture taking. Each trip we stop and take pictures of vague, undefined and boring landscape, somewhere along the way. We don't even take pictures of each other. If we did, we would only look at them and wonder who were those two old biddies.

As you would probably tell us, we should really stop and smell the roses on our trips, instead of traveling from A to B in one mad dash to get there. I am also thinking it is about time we traded our cameras in and got a camcorder. I am sure it would make for some very interesting dialogue!

I bet we are the only two people who toured the southern and western part of Vancouver Island in two days! For those of you not familiar with Vancouver Island, that is about 4 or 5 days of touring at the pace old biddies generally tour. We planned on taking a week because we have to figure on getting lost, at least once. The first day we went south to Victoria, and then on to Sooke. The following day we traveled back up the Island again and did the west coast. Actually, we never got lost once; confused, yes, but not lost. For instance, friends told us we should go to the Wickaninnish Inn on the west coast, and have lunch. According to them it was a great place to visit. Well, we went there and didn’t think it was that hot. Added to that, we couldn’t find out where our friends had eaten.

Later we discovered there are two Wickaninnish Inns, the old and the new. Of course we went to the old which is now just an information centre and place from which you can view the Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, the two Inns are nowhere near each other.

We drove to Uculet approximately 30 kilometers down the road, where we had lunch in an old boat that was made into a restaurant. The food was really good. After lunch I asked where the rest room was and was directed to the head of some stairs. Ah, life is never that simple for us. Down I went into the bowels of the ship and at the bottom was a long hallway which I followed, right into what looked like crew quarters. At least there was a bathroom complete with toothbrushes and other grooming gear.

It was eerie and apparently I was the only one down there. I suddenly realized that if I yelled for help, nobody would hear me. Added to all this I was now beginning to doubt myself. This was not the rest room for the restaurant because those stairs were pretty steep and you have to step over a sill from room to room; there was no way it was a wheelchair friendly place. I worked my way back upstairs to where Verna was beginning to wonder if I was O.K. I suggested to her if she has to use the bathroom, I would stop at the first garage and she can use theirs.

Did I mention that this year we are planning (the only way Verna and I plan is to just get in the car and drive), a trip to the northern most part of the Island. We will just go till we run out of road. I am planning to pick Verna up at the ferry in Comox. If we are going to get lost, this would be the time, trying to get out of Comox!

I figure this is the only reason why she and I take these jaunts; so we can get together and have a lot of laughs We laugh at things other people don’t think are funny and we learn new words to call all the other drivers on the road.

Till the next time,
Biddy Jean

The Fly Fisherman

2009-07-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

A fly fisherman is a true artist. He casts and performs a beautiful display of loops and curves with his line as he sends it flying over the water, eventually placing the fly at the end of the line in front of the fish lurking just below the surface; the fish doesn’t stand a chance. For the fish it is fatal temptation and it is not too long before our artist and hero is ‘bringing in the big one’ (all 12 inches of it)! What poetry in motion, what a feeling of satisfaction, what a tale for the telling.

After several attempts at this new sport, Denis sensed that this fly fishing business was not going to be a piece of cake. Weighed down by all kinds of equipment that he didn’t need as a beginner, he joined the ‘experts’ on a couple of local lakes. To his horror his casting was appalling, he was using the wrong type of flies and worse still, was creating too much of a splash on the lake, immediately advertising his presence to the fish and irritating other anglers nearby. However, he persevered.

As he became more practiced in his art, our intrepid hero had to suffer the indignities of overturned canoes, soaking clothes, flies in the hair, stalled engines on the boat, tangled lines and countless other stories to explain, ‘The one that got away.’

Wanting to reach the height of perfection, a never ending cash flow was required to purchase the ‘vital’ equipment needed to assure success. This included rods – not just any rod but the best hand-made rod and an array of back-up rods designed according to the species of fish to be caught.

Of course, there was the reel to go on the rod. Clearly, nothing but the best was appropriate for Denis – and several of them.

Hooks and flies – without which it is difficult to catch a fish, were added to the ever swelling inventory. Hooks vary in size, again depending on the type and size of fish being pursued.

Flies – a fly, is a fly, is a fly – not so when it comes to flies for sports fishing. They come in a beautiful array of colours for all kinds of fish and all kind of weather as well as ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ flies. The dry flies float on top of the surface and the wet fly (lure) swims in the surface water or below. In both cases the choice depends on what type of fish the fisherman is chasing, their feeding habits, the environment and the weather.

Clothing was not exempt from the, ‘I definitely need’ list. When he started fishing, Denis was content with the basics, but he progressed in his art, he found that waders were a definite asset together with a wading stick to test the depth of the waters at the bottom of the river (mud has a habit of sinking).

It was not too long before he realized that urgent repairs to broken lines or tippets were better done in the river, rather than returning to the bank. Therefore, a fishing vest had to be purchased; otherwise it would be impossible to fish!

A fishing vest is a waistcoat composed of a multitude of pockets upon pockets to hold all the tools of the trade and a variety of clips on which to hang the implements not suitable for pocket storage. Amongst other things, the vest may sport pliers, penknives, files, flies, fly boxes, a thermometer, a whistle, a flotant, scissors, a fly drying patch etc. In fact a well equipped fly vest, fully loaded, succeeds in presenting our intrepid fisherman as a ‘Pearly King’ or Christmas tree without lights.

As he climbed the expensive ladder of success to fishing competency and in some cases, outstanding flashes of brilliance, Denis had to focus on times and weather. The optimum times for fishing would appear to be between 7.00 a.m. and 2.00 p.m. and one hour before dusk to half an hour after dusk. There are, of course, other times to be tried – all day long and all night long, if necessary.

As in countless situations, other than fishing, the weather is crucial. A strong cold east wind can cause the fish to go deeper into the water. Bright days with a cloudless sky or white clouds tend to enhance the vision of the fish. The ideal condition may well be the still, dull, warm day in excess of 50ºF.

Finally, what does our hero see in this sport of fly fishing? To the layman or onlooker it is a dull, boring, slow and often futile sport, to say nothing of the cost.

As Denis points out, it is the enjoyment of pitting his wits against those of the fish. What wits does a fish have, I ask? He maintains that there is no time to think about other mundane problems and he is getting plenty of aerobic exercise, climbing, walking and casting. Above all there is the solitude, the river or lake, the countryside and the communion with nature. Then there is always the anticipation of catching ‘The Big One’ or just ‘a fish’ to show for being out all day and half the night!

Copyright © Susan Lancaster.

Michael Jackson (From an Old Biddy's Perspective)

2009-07-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

When Michael Jackson burst onto the pop musical scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I could see he and I were not going to get along!

I was then in my late forties, and for me, he was way too far out. His music was something I would never listen to, his eccentricity was beyond belief, and his voice, the odd song here and there I heard by accident, was not particularly the kind of voice I appreciated. I didn’t see any of his videos and so was unaware of any other talents he had. In fact Michael Jackson was a vague, eccentric personality somewhere out there on the horizon in my life and I really had not formed any kind of opinion about him.

That being said, I didn’t approve of the way the press always had him ‘in our faces’ whether we liked it or not. The public was forced to swallow much more of Michael Jackson than perhaps they or he wanted. During his various lawsuits and trials, you were compelled to read at least one paragraph of the proceedings because it was all on the front page, and in most cases – filled the front page. In spite of my indifference towards him, I never believed for one moment that he was guilty of any of the charges brought against him. In my opinion, these legal sensations were the result of a couple of people who had known the star. They saw an opportunity to capitalize on a tenuous situation and blow it out of all proportion. For them, this was all in the name of money, money, money. How pathetic.

I could lapse into a complete tirade about how the press treats all these various celebrities. It is dreadful. The press can do a lot for us, but they can also quite calmly destroy people’s lives without any care in the world. When someone dies, the media goes on a feeding frenzy and pushes forward any material good or bad that cause people to buy the paper and therefore earn more money for the press.

We have seen this exact same media nonsense with Diana, Princess of Wales. The media went mad and have since gone to profound lengths to keep her memory in the news with whatever tidbit they can get hold of. Unfortunately, they are aided and abetted by a voracious component of the public who don’t seem to care what they read as long as it provides them with gossip and something to talk about. It now looks as though we are going down the same road with Michael Jackson. Everybody is suffering; most of all his three children, the rest of his family, his friends and his fans. Do they really want to see their idol smeared with put downs and any grotty innuendo the mass communications can find?

As mentioned before, the media does have its positive side and for me, that was taking whole television news hours to define what Michael Jackson had meant to his fans. At last I was able to see what everyone was raving about, because I watched his dancing, his singing and bits of clips of his private life and interviews.

I was truly amazed. Here was an extremely multi-talented, versatile person. His voice was excellent, his dancing fabulous and his charisma electric. Looking also at some of the interviews he tolerated about his personal life left me truly disgusted with the media. How rude could they get? In addition to all his talents, he was quite a handsome man despite his efforts to change his face.

It has been alleged that he died heavily in debt, and, if that is the case, I don’t think his estate will be debt-ridden for long. In fact, in death he will probably make more money than when he was alive and financially more than compensate for the come back we never saw.

I am sad that he has gone; sad because he was so young, sad because he left three charming children without a father and sad because his further contribution to his art will never be.

I finally have a new respect for Michael Jackson – he was superb in all that he did. I might buy his videos – if I can find them.

Rest in peace, Michael.

Ghosts in the Attic - Catch Up.

2009-07-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

After writing about our ghosts initially (see previous post), we had peace and quiet for about three weeks.

While reading my book one evening, the banging started again and I just couldn’t believe it. What was going on? Again, Denis and I toured the house and could find nothing that could be the cause of this problem.

After two or three days of this intrusion into our daily lives, we decided that something had to be done, but what? Since we could not identify the noise, it was difficult to know the qualified person needed to fix the problem. Our best bet so far was someone in construction because we were now convinced that something was going on in the basic roof construction and if it wasn’t fixed we had visions of part of the roof collapsing.

The following evening, Denis walked into the lounge with a smug grin on his face and announced that he had found ‘the ghost’.

“What!”

“You’ll never guess. They are the speakers belonging to my computer.”

“But that’s in your office, not the attic,” I reminded him.

“Come and see”, said Denis as he started to walk back to the office.

He twiddled the knob on the speaker as he increased the volume, and sure enough there came the hollow, rather loud static bang that sounds exactly like someone banging on the wall.

Since Denis’s office was at the end of the house, I could see how the sound could reverberate and appear to be coming from other places.

“We can easily put this to the test,” said Denis, “by turning off the speakers and then putting them on again.” Sure enough, it was the speakers, and when they were off we never heard another sound. $155 later our problem was solved.

So much for our ‘ghosts’! The moral of this story is – if you think you have ghosts in the attic, check the speakers attached to the computer first.

I was telling this story to someone yesterday, and she asked me if I seriously believed in ghosts?

Do you?

A Memorial

2009-06-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

I need to write about Pat’s memorial service because it was different. It wasn’t your usual run-of-the-mill solemn, tearful funeral service. It was uplifting, joyous and a true celebration of a life.

The Church was full. Ten minutes to wait before the family arrived.

The service began with ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, setting the tone for an uplifting occasion. This was a hymn my mother requested to be sung at her funeral, but that never happened because my sisters organized everything overseas and I forgot to mention her request. So I sang ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ for my mother.

As we moved on after the psalm and readings, ‘A Time of Remembrance’ was recalled by Lisa, Pat’s daughter. I knew Pat only as a person I saw once a week in church. We enjoyed a couple of serious conversations, shared grandchildren pictures and I had worked church duties with her. We had fun. She was a very pleasant person to be around – and she always had the most gorgeous outfits.

Lisa spoke so eloquently about her mother’s life. Pat’s achievements in her busy life were amazing, and I really regretted that I had not known her a little better.

We sang ‘She Flies On’ and the Prayer of St. Francis’, both of which highlighted the personality which was Pat.

Our priest shared his homily prefaced by remarks that Pat, herself, had planned this service. With a wry smile he related how Pat had warned him that the service was to be a joyous, positive occasion and experience, which it certainly was.

Throughout the service, thoughts came to me periodically; thoughts about life and death, living, family and marriage etc. Pat and her husband Eric had been married for 45 years. Where, oh where is that ethic now? What, I wonder, could have been achieved in society as a whole from many more people in a solid, firm permanent marriage, rather than with second partners and extended scattered family?

Upon concluding the service, Kevin announced that Pat was going to have the last word with a recording of ‘What a Beautiful World’ sung by Louis Armstrong. As the strains of this lovely melody and the gravelly tones of Louis Armstrong enveloped the church, all was silent and still. It was almost as if there was a huge communal hug going on between Pat, her family and friends.

Indeed, I felt that Pat was really and truly with us through the entire service; a smile of joy and satisfaction spreading across her face as Louis Armstrong came to the end of his famous song.

May the Lord keep you with him for all eternity, Pat. We will meet again at some time, some day.

ZUCCHINI FOR SALE

2009-06-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Before I go out to see if Don is planting the tomatoes correctly, thought I should open my e-mail. So here I am. Susan, I don't know if you saved me from going outside or Don from listening to me telling him that what he is doing with the tomatoes is all wrong! But that's O.K. because he is pretty good at ignoring me.

Back to your Blog; really enjoyed your article on Old Biddy. No one wants to admit they are an old biddy and I can see your Mother's point - everyone is old but her. I felt the same way when I went to my Class Reunion. I was a spring chicken compared to everybody else there.

Now, if I only knew how to get to your website on my own! I will ask the computer guy when he comes in from planting the tomatoes. He has completely landscaped a large area in which to plant five tomatoe plants. Our next door neighbour gave us two (one is one too many) zucchini plants. Just think, all this time I thought he liked us! I have a feeling this is why Don has dug and composted and built a wall around this large area, so the zucchini will have room to grow – never mind the tomatoes. I have a problem with this, because now the neighbour will be encouraged to give us some more plants next year. I would have planted the zucchinis with the hope the bugs would enjoy them and leave the tomatoes alone. Maybe I could make tiny, tiny signs!

Incidentally, glad to hear you like zucchini, we will put you on our list of things to do with the Zucchini. Small zucchinis for salads are good, but if you let them go longer than a week, you get these huge odd shaped things good only for Zucchini loaves, and you can only eat so many zucchini loaves. You know, I think they may be good for children who want to learn how to carve – with very dull knives! Will let you know what corner Don will be standing on when giving the away the Zucchinis.

Definitely NOT a Zucchini fan

Feedback: One Old Biddy to Another on "The Scales"

2009-06-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

You are too hard on yourself, I have, like you, been on every kind of diet you can think of. If I could turn back time I would have tried harder to keep the weight off, when I lost it all at Weight Watchers. Things I learned when weighing in every week. It never works, but people try it anyway.

Sneak up on the scale; -or hold your breath - this one really doesn't make sense you should be blowing the air out not keeping it. (How much does air weigh??). To continue, stand on one foot; stand tall and hold your breath; take off everything you can and still be decent or say to hell with it.

As long as your blood pressure is ok, your diabetes is in check and you fell pretty good, except for the arthritis......Still it would be nice to lose a bunch of pounds.

Biddy Jean

The Day The Scales Crashed

2009-06-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

“You lie”, I screamed as I stood on the scales after two weeks of near starvation, only to find the indicator still at the same figure as last time. In blind fury I jumped with all my might on the scales and that, I'm afraid, was the end of my weighing apparatus.

I was desperate and the problem - what to do about it? After all, the medical profession, weight loss companies and diet pundits trumpet their success mainly with young, nubile women who achieve fantastic weight losses in a record period of time. Not once do you hear about a plodding, older, slower biddy who has achieved any kind of success following the same regimen in any period of time, as in my case.

However, make no mistake about it, the weight loss organizations will assert that if you stick to a diet, preferably their particular diet, you will lose weight.

There is no one, I am certain, absolutely no one living who has had more experience dieting over the past 40 years than myself. Furthermore, I know my body inside out and back to front. Success was always mine when I was younger, even when I thought I was overweight at size 14! Now, nothing moves. Not even exercise in a gym for three months four times per week and a diet of approximately 1400 calories can assist.

I sit and chat with doctors who admit ‘they don’t know’. I see a specialist in obesity who is over the moon with the prospect of having yet another guinea pig for drug controlled diet tests. When he finds out that due to a particular medication I am taking I don’t fit the specifications of the test drug manufacturer, I am dropped immediately.

What can be done? It seems to be a well known fact that as you grow older, so it becomes much more difficult to lose weight. To a person like myself who is in possession of a stubborn body, the weight control organizations, while never admitting defeat, tend to give up on you. The medical profession cannot help so they placate you with the admission that they simply don’t have any answers apart from the old maxim that the less calories you consume the more weight you will lose.

This may be generally true, but we all know that different bodies respond to different diets. An 800 calorie diet for me yielded no success because my body thought it was being attacked and went into shut down mode. The only time I lost weight on few calories, was in a hospital bed for 10 days, drinking three meal replacement drinks a day.

As for your nearest and dearest friends and relatives, they utter silly platitudes like, get comfortable with your overweight image and accept it and stop worrying. Not on your life!The above arguments are not acceptable for me - not when you are clinically obese and biologically time is running out. It is not a healthy situation viewed in any light.

I want to continue life as a fit and healthy woman, enjoying a good quality of life, so shedding weight is a must. Growing old with an obesity problem is not an option.
Many other people must have this problem, and I would love to have your thoughts on the subject – please share them with me.

Ghosts in the Attic?

2009-06-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

“What was that?” Denis exclaimed – “Where’s Dog?”.

“Dog’s here, by my feet; what’s the problem?”

“Didn’t you hear that thud?”

No, I hadn’t heard the thud and since Denis didn’t seem overly concerned about it, the silent evening continued with us both working away at our respective tasks.

A couple of hours later, there was another thud and I heard it this time. Odd, I thought to myself, the house does creak and groan from time to time, but I’ve never heard a thud before now. I was just trying to work all this out when there was yet another thud. Not a very loud one, but it definitely sounded as though someone or some object was coming into contact with the wall. The trouble is, there is no wall in the attic, except the outside wall and it sounded like an inside thud – not an outside thud.

We experienced this noise later in the evening in what appeared to be in the attic above our bedroom, but we still couldn’t figure out what it was. I can’t say that we were frightened or particularly worried about it, but it was an uncomfortable feeling.

Obviously this thump, once started, didn’t feel like stopping and we heard it the following day and again in the evening, whereupon I decreed that steps must be taken to investigate. Denis could not go up into the attic, and I would not go up into the attic so, working on the assumption that it must be some sort of large rodents, or, heaven forbid, even a coon, we called our friendly pest control expert the following morning.

Dave arrived just before noon and I was anxious to find out if he had been called out for this kind of thing before.

“Oh, lots of times,” said Dave, with a large grin spreading from one ear to the other, “but most of the time it’s just ghosts in the attic!” Knowing what my reaction might be to that last sentence, he hurriedly climbed the ladder to the attic.

He found nothing, certainly no coon; after he had climbed down the ladder, he heard the thud which prompted him to revise his opinion of ghosts in the attic and he decided to take a tour around the house outside.

Five minutes later, he reported back with his findings. We were all agog thinking that our little mystery might soon be solved.

“It could well be something to do with the attachment of the main electric cable to the house” Dave, the pest control expert explained. This cable swung across the road and up to the side of the house where it is attached to some kind of fixture on the outside wall of the house. “Phone Hydro,” he suggested.

The following day, having heard more “thumps in the night” I called Hydro. The operator at the other end of the phone explained that the gadget which attaches the cable to the house is called an Emily knob and as such was not Hydro’s responsibility. Ah, I thought, we are running true to form – pass the buck. The operator suggested I call an electrician.

Friday morning dawned, with more thuds during the night and I was on the phone to the electrician. Yes, they would come out some time today.

Two electricians turned up at 1:30 p.m., and did a thorough investigation, absolutely intrigued with their unusual problem at this residence. Apparently the Emily knob was sound and secure, as was the electric cable attached to it. Since the cable entered the house below the attic line, the electricians ruled out the Emily knob or the cable being the cause of our small problem. Why were Dave and ourselves not able to figure that out before I called Hydro, because I guess were are not electricians.

While standing at the bottom of the ladder to the attic, both electricians heard the thud, and raced back up again to see what they could see which was absolutely nothing. Finally, they left, completely perplexed, as was I. What next, I wondered.

What came next was a cessation of thumps, and a huge bill from the electricians.

I must report that we didn’t hear another sound for about three weeks; but the thudding started again on Tuesday.

Stay tuned for an update on Ghosts in the Attic?

© Susan Lancaster

The Funky Laundry Room

2009-06-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

For the first time I have to admit that I can no longer go like a bat out of hell to accomplish certain projects. I am 70 but like most older people, I feel that my mind is still operating at a much younger age. You feel that nothing can hold you back from accomplishing whatever you set your mind to do – until you start!

Multitasking has already become a thing of the past and I am quite incapable of thinking about more than one thing at one time. So, what has led me to this startling revelation – that I must admit defeat in the ‘do it in five minutes department’? The funky laundry room (funky, new biddy term for messy) - that’s what.

The laundry room in our house is like a general bottomless pit for all things having no specific home. Do you know how great it is to have a room like this? The advantages are as follows:

You don’t have to think where to put something.

You know you can shut the door and forget about whatever you’ve put in there.

You have the freedom to put the article on the nearest shelf or in any space you can find – even piled on top of other things if necessary.

You don’t have to remember to put it away later.

It is one less thing littering the rest of the house.

Yes, the laundry room is the perfect resting place for all things that don’t have a designated place – until it is time to clean it up because there is simply no more room for anything else and you can’t even get the door closed. That creates some massive problems. Not the least of which is a husband who has items stored which he hasn’t touched for three years! But is he going to move them – not on your life. Why not, because he is too doggone lazy and he is also a pack rat.

The cleaning up of the laundry room, which normally should take one hour, now seemed endless. I fussed and funkied around here and there, creating more work for myself because I had no plan. (That’s another thing I don’t do any more - planning). To cut a long story short, I spent about 2.5 hours on it before making lunch.

After lunch, I spent about half an hour arguing with myself about the whole darn mess, and then gave up. What a waste of time – this arguing with oneself, I mean. The laundry room isn’t going to run away –it has been in a complete mess for about 6 months, so one more day shouldn’t matter and furthermore, even if it isn’t finished tomorrow, it will be finished the next day – so what.

The worst is yet to come; I still have to convince one husband that something like the package of deer hair he is hoarding in the funky laundry room, for tying fishing flies, is not at the top of the consideration list for keeping, since he stopped fishing about three years ago!

About Me

2009-06-07T19:43:00.000-07:00

“Oh, I’m not going down to eat with those old biddies,” said my mother, in reply to my question about eating plans, “I will have lunch in my room, thank you.” Whereupon, she turned back to read her book and that was the end of any further conversation. Once, I did dare to remind her that she herself was an old biddy, so why was she complaining? She flattened me with such a look and frantically started her crossword. I never pursued it any further.

This all took place in very attractive nursing home amongst the hills of Wales, UK, where my mother spent the last ten years of her life. Unfortunately, I lived in Canada, and therefore didn’t see her as often as I would like to have seen her, because she was not only my mother, but my best friend. Let me tell you - I really needed her wisdom at times.

Mother was in her mid-to-late eighties when she started to describe other women as old biddies. In comparison, I’m a bit younger, but I’ve decided that the term old biddy suits me quite well. So be it.

Other than being an old biddy, my name is Susan E. Lancaster. I was born and brought up in England for the first 21 years of my life – and what a happy life it was. I was most fortunate in having wonderful parents and two super sisters.

One day, when we were all of 20 years old, a friend of mine, Sheila, joined me for lunch in Liverpool. The conversation was mainly about our work and our respective jobs. We both reached the conclusion that life in ‘old blighty’ was boring and we’d better think about doing something to kill the ennui and restlessness we felt before it was too late.

Within a week we had all the required documents in our hands to go to Canada, and we were booked on the Empress of France to sail on April 1st, 1960 to Quebec. What an adventure we’d lined up for ourselves.

We sailed to Canada as planned and arrived in Toronto on April 6th, all decked out in fur gloves, fur boots, fur hats, heavy coats and scarves. With half a dozen suitcases in tow, we made for the our hotel in 80 degrees of heat. There was not one speck of snow to be found anywhere.

The years rolled away for both of us and we are still in Canada, Sheila Briant in Toronto and myself living on Vancouver Island off the west coast of British Columbia.

I married a great guy just two years after arriving in the country. We have two boys and his parents came to live with us for thirteen years. Most of the time we also had a menagerie of dogs and cats. Life was total and utter mayhem most of the time.

Unfortunately, the marriage ended after 18 years and it was a very sad time for the entire family.

I spent several years on my own before meeting another great guy, Denis, my husband who has been kind enough to put up with me for twenty one years.

As mentioned, we live on beautiful Vancouver Island. Our companion is a dog called Rufus who tries his very best to keep some kind of orderly conduct around the place. Because he is part Lab and part Collie, his basic instinct ‘to herd’ is still there and he likes to make sure Denis, Susan and Rufus are all together.

In February 2009. I celebrated my 70th birthday and officially became an old biddy, with the whole of the rest of my life before me to do what I pleased.

I always wanted to do something for other people, either directly, or indirectly, so I decided to write this blog and hope that many, many people will get a daily dose of humour. I am sure you’ll get a chuckle from the posts because they are events/happenings/ stories/situations which we’ve all encountered time and time again.

I like:
 Being honest and open with people and slightly wacky at times
 Reading a variety of books
 Designing and sewing clothes when I have the time.
 Playing bridge
 Writing: children’s books, booklets, blogs and a business book.
 I like to be fairly well organized and in control of my life, but you would never guess if you saw my desk. I get stressed out if I know that order has collapsed.

I don’t like:
 Dishonesty
 Disorganization
 Husbands who don’t come to bed on time
 Beetroot
 Bananas

No doubt, as postings progress, you will get to know me a little better, but if you need an answer to something in the meantime, let me know.

I will also be including some articles by guest bloggers which I hope you will enjoy.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this entire blog to the memory of a lady who had a wacky sense of humour (we used to have unannounced competitions to see who could out-abuse the other)! Here’s to Annette.

Don’t forget to check out the other blogs and websites, listed on the right hand side of the blog. If you would like to be a writer, then you should visit susanlancaster.blogspot.com