Nagging Doubts and The Battle Of The Beans

Ending this week sees me on the horns of two dilemmas. My first one refers to my blog post of Tuesday, where I bemoaned the mahoosive costs involved in taking my tribe of 2 adults and one proto-adult to the cinema these days. Last night one of my friends who owes us a couple of favours and who wanted to get Vee a belated birthday present offered to take us to see “War Horse” as his treat. Now, a part of me immediately went “YEEEEEEESSSSSS” because we do want to see the film and all enjoy a wee trip out. He has offered to take us to the local fleapit but I figure it’s his money so he gets to pick where. On the other hand, I feel that because I made such a song-and-dance about it, I should really stick to my guns and politely decline because if I’m not prepared to shell out cash then neither should he. But should my over-riding (see what I did there – “over-riding”, horses, geddit? No?) principles outweigh the opportunity for my wee family who have in all honesty made really big sacrifices over the past year because of our financial worries (no birthday or Xmas presents for Gee or I and no holidays or trips away at all last year) to have a nice weetreat? I’m afraid I am going to do what all good people should do in these circumstances do – leave the decision to someone else. I am going to listen to Mark Kermode’s review on Radio 5 Live this very afternoon and if he likes it, we’ll go. So, Good Doctor, it’s down to you.
Secondly, I am involved in an ongoing battle with my dear daughter Vee. Ever since she was little, she has disliked the taste and texture of beans of any kind. Baked beans, red kidney beans, borlottis, flagelots, pinto beans, refried beans, blackeyed peas – you name it, she won’t eat it. I manage to smuggle chickpeas past her in the form of falafels but she won’t eat hoummous/ hummus/ however the hell it’s spelled. Now, as part of my economy drive, I have been buying dried beans and pulses in bulk. I use red and green/ brown lentils in place of things like Quorn or TVP mince to make lasagne and shepherd’s pie (are you a spy? No I’m a shepherd. Ah, a shepherd spy – sorry, can’t resist. The Goons I think?) and yellow split peas to make dhal and soup. This week, I made soup based on a recipe from Claudia Roden’s excellent “Middle Eastern Food” book using haricot beans but also lots of garlic plus carrots, leeks and potatoes, all slightly pureed together. Madam claimed that she wasn’t hungry and took a major teenage strop when I tried to persuade her to eat it. Gee claims that I should just not make any meals with beans in them. But we are VEGETARIANS for the love of Mike and beans are a major source of protein, which a growing young woman needs. We eat really well for poor veggies – this week so far apart from the soup we have had leek and Sosmix (a packet “sausage” mix from Asda that is cheap and filling) pie, quesadillas, baked macaroni cheese, moussaka and a spinach, lentil and sweet potato dhal. I enjoy cooking and because I can’t work at the moment, I feel it’s my contribution to the household and also my responsibility to keep my family well fed on a budget. I pride myself on being able to cook meals from scratch without resorting to expensive and unhealthy ready meals. I will admit that when I worked full time and when I was really poorly I did rely on a lot of frozen things because I either did not have the time or the energy and now see it as part of my recovery that I can and will make myself get into the kitchen and cook, so maybe that’s where Vee’s obstinacy stems from. I even make my own pizza dough which means we haven’t had bought in or takeaway pizza for months and we seldom have things like chips or “burgers” which used to form a staple of our diet. When I was growing up we had two choices – eat it or starve (well, that was for me and my littlest brother – our middle brother was indulged by my mother and ate tinned macaroni cheese while the rest of us had mince and tatties or soup, but that’s another story) and often my dad would serve up your uneaten dinner from the night before for your breakfast. Now I don’t want to be so harsh with Vee but I do feel that she should at least make an effort to eat what I make and educate her palate – and by that I don’t mean taking a miniscule piece of food and declaring that she doesn’t like it (my brother used to do that and make such a fuss – I know Vee isn’t him but it does push old buttons). I mean, she eats loads of things now at age 15 that she didn’t when she was younger like asparagus, spinach and even the odd bit of salad so I maintain that the more she is exposed to something, the sooner she will grow to like it. I know that everyone has food they just won’t eat – Gee recoils in horror from an inky black fried or grilled Portobello mushroom but I love them and I won’t eat eggs poached, boiled, scrambled or fried after a nasty vomiting episode when I had my gallbladder trouble – but I feel strongly that Vee should just suck it up and eat what I make because it’s delicious, I took the time to prepare it, she has to get her proteins from more than eggs and cheese to be a healthy vegetarian and we cannot afford to waste food or make her something else. I appreciate that with her at age 15 we ate bound to clash heads over something but I am tired of battling with her and watching her sit pouting and poking at her dinner. So tonight I am making a Provencale style stew with yes, beans (blackeyes and haricots) and peppers, tomatoes and garlic serves with garlic bread (ciabatta I got at a reduced price and have had in the freezer – I do that a lot as well, buying on-its-date bread). Madam will be having leftover moussaka from 2 nights ago that has been in the fridge. After that, it’ll be back to the trenches as I make up the menu for next week. Wish me luck xxx

No Horsing About For Us

WARNING – this blog contains me having a rant
Last year, Vee and I got very excited when we heard that a film was being made of the Michael Morpurgo book “War Horse”. It has long been a favourite in our house – Vee read all of his books when she as younger and loves both the story of Joey and Albert and his other book about the First World War, “Private Peaceful”. We were aware of the magnificent stage show in London and had watched many videos of how they do the horse puppetry but also accept we aren’t very likely to see it. However, we decided that we were definitely going to see the film, especially as it was scheduled to come out the weekend after Vee turned 15 so would be a post-birthday treat.
Well, after what has seemed like a long wait, the film is being released this week. And we aren’t going. Let me tell you why.
As I have detailed in this blog, along with many families not only in the UK but around the world, we are living on very little money. I cannot work because of my various diseases and maladies (although I am taking steps to improve my fitness with a view to perhaps returning to part-time work in the future) and Gee’s handyman business, which was doing pretty well up until around this time last year (so much so that in 2009 we had a holiday and plenty of treats) when it almost fell away to nothing and we have had to rely on benefits and take on loans to make ends meet. So when we started looking at how much it would cost to go to the cinema, we were shocked. Vee is back at school now so we cannot take advantage of any of the daytime offers. We are aware of “Orange Wednesdays” but we aren’t Orange customers and didn’t have the foresight to get a PAYG Sim – anyway that still leaves us with 2 tickets to buy. Also Vee is now considered a “teen” which at some cinemas means she pays a little less than full price but not much but in most she has to have an adult ticket. We do know of other offers like using store loyalty vouchers but again don’t use those shops enough to accrue enough points.
Our local cinema, which is a 15 minute walk away, is the Cineworld at Parkhead Forge. It is a fleapit at best, cold, draughty, messy and chronically understaffed unlike its equivalent in the city centre. I refuse to pay for a full-price ticket to see a film there and Vee and I only ever went to the free kids’ shows on a Saturday morning (“War Horse” may end up being shown there but not in the next couple of months). On Boxing Day 2009 we all went to see the Robert Downey Jr/ Jude Law Sherlock Holmes film and it was most unpleasant – it was freezing and the film seemed to be darker, which, having read Mark Kermode’s excellent book “The Good, the Bad And The Multiplex” I believe comes from a 2D film being shown on a 3D projector. Plus this poor cousin in the chain has the temerity to charge £7 per ticket (going before 5pm only saves you 60p), which is ridiculous. The Cineworld in town charges an unbelievable £8.30 plus it costs us a minimum of £8.20 to get there by bus! Going out into the wilds of Lanarkshire we have a Vue cinema in Hamilton where tickets are a wee bit cheaper (£7.50 peak but £5.30/ £6.40 before 5pm and “teen tickets” from £4.25-£5.95) but it still costs us the same in bus fare. Cinemas have massively cut back on the old “early bird” concession prices where you could go to see a film at around 10.30am for about £3-4 each and at weekends morning prices aren’t much less than evening ones.
Even if “War Horse” had been released over the Xmas and New Year holidays when Vee was off school we would have struggled to go. What had been planned as a family treat is now a major expenditure and frankly beyond our means.
This is a shame – I feel that there are some films that are designed to be seen on a cinema screen such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy. At home, we don’t have a massive telly either - we watch our DVDs on a small screen compared to those you see in many livingrooms. Maybe we will get a larger screen when the time comes to replace the one we have but that will be when it breaks down and not before.
So we will have to wait and see “War Horse” when it is released on DVD and even then when it drops in price unless we catch it on a special offer. It’s just not going to be the same, sadly. And as for “The Hobbit” later this year, forget it

Evolve Rather Than Resolve

So it's "back to normal" or what passes for normal in our house. Yesterday was the last official day of our festive season, being Vee's 15th birthday. Gee and I managed to pick up some cheapo CDs in HMV plus a Thin Lizzy greatest hits one in Asda (Vee does like Thin Lizzy - she has an amazingly eclectic taste in music, as do we all) which I'm going to want to pinch for my iPod. I made her a cake (see pic) which wasn't entirely successful as I was trying to cook dinner for 5 people at the same time so it collapsed a bit under the strain but it was yummy. She had asked for a "rainbow cake" but despite my best efforts at mixing blue, red and yellow food colouring it came out looking like radioactive sludge. Still, it's being eaten. We also had a mini Game Of Thrones marathon - all 3 of us are addicted, so much so that Vee has us doing all these online quiz things - so I'm Allysane Sand from the House Of Stark.
Gee and I have taken down the tree and all its decorations - we always leave it up til after Vee's birthday. I don't hold with all the "bad luck" nonsense that surrounds the festive season - my luck or fortune won't be changed by whether I still have fairy lights in my livingroom (they are staying for the time being) or if I went into the New Year with a tidy house. I am sad to see it go though and there's a big empty space in our back-to-front room (in the houses in our street we all have a long room with a wide arch - everyone but us has their "livingroom" with big couches and even bigger TVs at the front of the house and use the end near the back as a small dining space. Dancing to a different drum, we have our wee couches at the back as it's more cosy for reading and watching DVDs and at the front we have our PC and a big dining table with lots of chairs, which is where we eat and tend to sit if we have company) that will no doubt fill up with the detritus and clutter of our mad lives.
This morning however we were all up at 6.30 as Vee is back at school. I'm doing boring stuff like keeping the household accounts (we have sinned a bit by using the debit card to pay for some shopping but only because we weren't near a cash machine - we even forgot to take cards out when we met the out-laws for lunch and had to ask Vee to pay for ours using her birthday money! But we paid her back and got the olds to eat in a vegan eaterie), making soup and doing laundry. I am keeping to some of my evolutions - I have made an appointment to meet with a guy at Easterhouse sports centre next Tuesday as part of my GP exercise referral (that will be a laugh) and I'm cutting back on some foods (only one sugar in my tea now and less bread) while upping others (I am swigging Adam's Ale from a sports bottle as I type and yesterday I bought fruit - yes, fruit - it's a long standing joke in out tribe that I don't eat fruit. My mother just never bought any!) and walking more, even in the rain. I was planning to look at the screenwriting books again but I'll leave that til tomorrow.
I'm managing to keep in a good mood - reading, cooking and indulging my new obsessions of the afore-and-much-mentioned Game Of Thrones and a certain young Professor. And I might have signed up to join a choir, even though I can't carry a tune in a bucket! I think it's too easy too get caught up in all the things life and the media try to distract us with but I'm determined that a positive change is going to come and that it must come from me xxx

Starky And Hitches

My apologies for not blogging for a couple of days – I have been neglecting you all to watch some doovds and spend some time in Winterfell. Yes, I have succumbed to watching “Game Of Thrones” and it has usurped ”Boardwalk Empire” as my go-to for late-night watching. We’re only 3 episodes in and it has my wee tribe hooked. If you get the chance, do watch it – it has a dazzling array of British character actors including Sean Bean (known in our house as Shawn Bonn/ Seen Been), Charles Dance, Mark Addy and Clive Mantle from 1980’s series “Robin Of Sherwood”, Jerome Flynn (redeeming himself after his singing stint as one half of Robson and Jerome) with Scotland being well represented by the legendary James Cosmo, Jamie Sives and Rory McCann. It also stars the gorgeous Lena Headey (300) but the standout so far is the fantastic Peter Dinklage who gets all the best lines – he’s fast becoming one of my favourite actors. I tried to read the book but I have a bit of a block with characters with too-flowery names but I’m happy to keep watching the hell out of it. I’ve also been catching up with the second series of “The Big C” which continues to be both hilarious and fabulous.
My resolutions continue apace – I’m taking small steps like cutting down on my sugar and bread intake and walking the Direwolf (Roxie is more “dire” than wooluff) 2-3 times a day. I did go and see one of the doctor’s at out practice who was happy to refer me to an exercise programme. Unfortunately I have been stymied by not only my local leisure centre being closed from last month til next Spring for refurbishment to the pool for the bloody Commonwealth Games but by typical Glasgow City Council bureaucracy where instead of taking my form into my next nearest gym but instead having to phone the office at the council offices to who should give me an appointment (!) - and typically when I tried to do that yesterday not only did the woman who took my call not have a clue who to put me through to but when she did it was to a voicemail. You can bet I’ll be chasing it up on Monday.
Not much else has been happening here at Andrew-Barr towers – it’s Vee’s 15th birthday tomorrow and she has asked me to make her a “rainbow cake”. We are struggling financially to get her a decent present and the planned trip to see “War Horse” has been shelved, as going to the cinema is just too bloody expensive. Thankfully she is an understanding wee soul and will be happy with her cake and dinner of quesadillas and patatas bravas (her request). She’s back at rehearsals for her play this afternoon so we’re hoping to pop out and pick her up a wee something. And if she doesn’t like it, we can always marry her off to a Lannister or a Khal xxx

I was young once

Following a wee Twitter convo, here is one of my favourite pictures of me. It was from my video shop membership card - I think I look as cool as fuck. This was about 1987 when I was 20 xxx

In With The New

And so it begins, another turn of the circle of life, another dawn on a new year filled with hope and promise. I refuse to take heed of the doomsayers, whether it be the ones telling us that 2012 is the year the economy collapses and we all end up in the workhouse nor the juju peddlers who say the world is going to end because some ancient Mayan couldn't be arsed writing a calendar beyond this December.
No, I'm looking for the positive and facing the coming months with a smile and a determination that things can and will get better.
Step one in my quest is to get this old bag of bones and cake residue into some kind of shape, not only to get me walking with a view to attempting the walk to Santiago de Compostela by the time I am 50 (which is only 5 years away) but also to get myself fit enough and with the stamina to look to getting back into some form of paid work. I'm obviously not in a place yet to have some fool pay me for my ramblings either literary or on foot or both even, so I am prepared to go out and sell my labours - but first I have to be fit and not only fit but consistently fit. I have been out 3 times today, walking the dog, walking up to the Forge for some messages and again out with the dog in tow to the library and, apart from being soaked to the skin, I feel OK on it. On my way to the shops I popped in to my doctor's surgery to make an appointment to request what is called a Live Active Referral, where hopefully I will be matched up with an instructor at my local leisure centre (which is within walking distance) who will give me individual advice, support and encouragement to help me become and stay regularly physically active and allow me access to local authority facilities at a discounted price for up to 12 months. I think this is what I need to kickstart me into getting back to health. It's also important that I maintain better health and stay on top of my alilments as I was disappointed when I made my appointment for tomorrow to discover that my own GP who I have been seeing for 10 years and who has supported me through my various diagnoses and tribulations left the practice over the Xmas holidays and has moved to Wigtownshire. I am gutted as I know that GPs who are sympathetic towards patients like me with ME and Fibromyalgia and other conditions (like my Grave's Disease) are as rare as hen's teeth and I can't really be bothered going through all the explanations with a new one. I am seeing the part-time woman doctor tomorrow as of the 3 left, she seems the nicest - the senior partner is older and although good I do find him a bit brusque and the other full-time female doctor is an idiot, based on the one time I saw her and having told her of my diseases she got all excited about a new treatment only to then discover she had confused ME and MS! There will be a new partner and I'll see what he/ she is like but it is my goal this year and henceforth to be less well known in the practice.
Any way, hopefully I can be referred to this scheme because it would give me some structure and focus. I'm going to get back into my writing study and prepare for my course in Writing for Film which starts up in 3 weeks.
So I'm all fired up and ready to meet 2012 head on - it's going to be a good year, I can feel it.
Just as a wee side note, listening to new geek girl crush Professor Brian Cox on Desert Island Discs, I was amazed to learn he played keyboards in the band D:REAM whose catchy wee song "Things Can Only Get Better", although hijacked by bloody New Labour, seems appropriate so take it away Prof...xxx

The First Post...

...of this new year! I hope yours is off to a great start. We had a most excellent time last night - Phil made a delicious vegan "steak and sausage" pie with mash and carrots followed by brandy butter ice cream and mince pies. After that we settled down to watch "Super 8" which was really rather good. Although JJ Abrahms continues to overuse blue lights, I thought it was a great wee film with a largely unknown cast that had some great homages to movie-making, especially the scene where the army guy is shouting into a radio whilst looking round and all of the effects. It seemed to me like something Stephen King would have written years ago before he got shite.
Unlike us, still holding out with a wee telly, P&D have a rather big screen on which on Vee's suggestion we ended up watching a Lady Gaga HBO special of her gig at Madison Square Gardens. Say what you like about Mother Monster (and I for one do love her) she does put on a great show. We went into the kitchen for the bells (what we call the strike of 12 in Scotland) and amongst much hugging and smooching wished each other all the best. Dougie's brother Stuart came down at about 12.30, by which time Vee had found "Serenity" showing on TV so we saw in the New Year watching that. They say you spend the year doing what you do in the first minutes of its birth and I'd be happy to see the influence of one of my favourite movies.
We headed to bed about 2.30 ish where Gee and I slept fitfully on the sofa bed, interrupted by our Rox and P&D's Rudi having a wee territorial spat. I woke going to midday to a fantastic fried bunch - tempeh rashers and tattie scones on rolls with mushrooms and hot tea. We headed home about 4ish to laze about in our jammies.
For the first time in ages, I'm looking forward - things ARE going to get better, if not in terms of the government of this country and on a global scale, then certainly within my own wee sphere. I hope that all of us can find peace and maybe a wee bit of strength this year, if not to have our own version of an Arab Spring then to look to our own families and communities and make links there that will see us through the times to come. The Olympics are an irrelevance, the Mayan calendar is a load of mumbo-jumbo - don't live this coming twelvemonth at the dictats of others but by your own rules, your way. That's what I'm aiming for. Peace out xxx