Back from the Cold Country

It was cold, too - about as cold as it is here today, it's not very nice......there is no sun, just grey clouds, but the sun will shine again one day.

My brother has been laid to rest in a peaceful country cemetery with tears and chuckles.  Tears because nobody likes to say a final goodbye, and chuckles because of anecdotes told about him by various people at his send-off.  Now there are just two of us, another younger brother and me.

Our motel backed onto parkland beside Quart Pot Creek, the creek which flows through their town.

 It was quite cold late in the afternoon.......

........although that didn't bother the local ducks.

On Saturday night Kevin and I attended 70th birthday celebrations for Bill who directs Thursday night's choir, and who has been a mainstay of theatrical and musical life in this town (and in many other places) since first treading the boards at the tender age of six.  The choir sang a song, a few of us who belong to both choir and uke group performed a song specially written for the occasion......Bill was really thrilled by that......lots of (fortunately mostly short!) speeches, and jokes, and fun.  It was a happy end to a week of sadness, and an affirmation that life does indeed go on.

Tomorrow's slow cooker dish will be beef cooked in dark beer with bacon, carrots and onions - just the thing for the cold day which is forecast.  The following day it will cook chicken, bacon and vegetable soup.  We don't buy ready-made soup, home-made is much nicer......and probably better for us too, as there in no added salt (unless the dish really needs it, which this won't - the small amount of bacon used will provide enough), certainly no added sugar, and nothing artificial at all.

Some of the stories told last week were about my mother, a woman who didn't enjoy cooking and wasn't, in fact, much of a cook - unlike her own mother.  My mother gladly seized on convenience foods as they arrived on the market, sometimes to the detriment of taste and flavour!  I can remember a packet of apple dessert which was supposed to be a layer of pastry, then a layer of apple, then another layer of pastry - like an open-sided pie.  What none of us realised (probably no one read labels then) was that there were two of these concoctions with a layer of cardboard in the middle to separate them.......we thought it seemed a bit chewy.......tinned soups were her best friends, and packet cake mixes weren't far behind.

The uke group is getting into some rock music, would you believe we play the Rolling Stones' song "Honky Tonk Woman"?  The idea of playing heavy rock on inky-dinky ukes appeals to our sense of fun.

Recently a cardigan which has been on the knitting needles for ages was taken up again, as a recovering shoulder didn't lend itself to the fine movement required.  One of these days it might actually be finished.  Pattern is "Peasy", and as it is knitted in one piece from the neck down there are an awful lot of stitches on the needle while knitting the body.......it is already the length required, I am just making it a little bit longer.  Finishing it will be a great achievement, let me tell you.

"Expensive dinners not the most enjoyable.
It is a mistake to think that in giving a dinner, it is indispensable to have certain dishes and a variety of wines, because others serve them.  Those who entertain frequently often use their own discretion, and never feel obliged to do as others do, if they wish to do differently.  Some of the most enjoyable dinners given are those which are least expensive.  It is this mistaken feeling that people cannot entertain without committing all sorts of extravagances, which causes many persons, in every way well qualified to do incalculable good socially, to exclude themselves from all general society."

Even inexpensive food can, and should, be tasty.........so long as the cook reads instructions before serving it.

Enjoy your days!