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Mom jeans

by with No Comment BeautyGeneralHealth and wellbeingParenting

Yeah you read that right. Mom jeans. I can’t speak for all womankind and I would never profess to but I can speak for myself when I say that women’s fashion sucks. I’ve been having these revolutionary thoughts for some time but never really had the guts to change the way I dress. But women are expected to wear really form fitting and revealing clothing. Skinny jeans ? They are the worst. Mini skirts ? Dresses ? Tight blouses? If you like to wear those things then more power to you. Go wear what you want. High heels ? Why torture ourselves ? This morning I was getting dressed and I asked my husband if I looked ok and he shrugged and said I don’t know. Why did I even ask him ? I don’t need anyone’s validation. But maybe I’ve been conditioned by society to care about what people (men) in particular think about how I look (see The price of being female). My husband then conceded and said it must be hard for women to figure out what to wear because women’s fashion is so vast and we are always expected to stay on top of trends. We are conditioned to care about fashion. We are conditioned to want to shop and buy and consume. Trends change all the time. Do you have any idea how stressful this is for women (see Hair cut;  The maintenance routine of an old librarian; Working Mothers; Alone time for an introvert)? I won’t even go into the impact this has on the environment because we all know the costs of fast fashion. For men, it’s simple – jeans and shirt. Work wear is simple for men- trousers and a shirt. Maybe some women don’t have such complicated wardrobe issues but it’s definitely not easy for me anyway. I was watching a show a few years back while I was in a waiting room somewhere and the topic was whether women should wear heels on a first date. I nearly lost my fracking sh*t.  Seriously? Is this how women are judged? Why is it important what shoes we wear ? How does that impact anything. Surely our personalities should matter. Of course I’m not advocating that we don’t care about how we look and take pride in our appearance. But we shouldn’t be scrutinised and our value decided based on our footwear. Ok rant over. This brings me to Mom jeans. I like to think I’m a trendy person. This is where the people who know me now burst out laughing hysterically. You trendy ? Hahaha. Yeah yeah laugh all you want. But now I don’t care about trends anymore. I’ve ditched all my stupid uncomfortable skinny jeans and bought some high waisted Mom jeans. The first time my husband saw them he hated them and begged me to send them back. Chump (for more on Chump see Push ups and the Chump). Never. I love them so much. They are high waisted. They are elastic. They are loose. They are everything I have ever wanted in a trouser. I feel like MC Hammer. I am loving life. When Chump dared to complain about my Mom jeans I turned around and I said – I want to dress the way I feel comfortable, not the way society thinks I should dress. That shut him up. Boom. Welcome to the revolution my friends.

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Jam!

by with No Comment Food

Right. New haircut, new attitude (see Hair cut). No more moping, no more sulking (see Ennui, boredom, sadness and zoom doom; Sadness ; Nostalgia)

So today it‘s a positive vibe blog. A recipe post! Ooh exciting, I hear you say. Yes you’re right ! It is exciting. For today my friends I made jam. The holy grail of domesticity. I have a glut of plums sitting in my fridge. My daughter usually inhales plums but for some reason she is ignoring her plums for nectarines. I am not partial to plums and my son won’t touch them. Chump has them but only when forced. So the plums must go to make space for the nectarines. What to do with the plums ? Cake ? Ok. Crumble? Why not. Clafoutis? Yeah sure. But today I felt like none of those things. Today I felt like jam. I LOVE making jam. They make me feel accomplished. They make me feel like a real mother. It‘s the pinnacle of home cooking. I love using things that otherwise just sit there. I love the alchemy of fruit and sugar turning into something thick and unctuous. At the risk of sounding anti feminist (which believe me, I’m not- but that’s another post for another day), making jam makes me feel like I’ve had the best day and I am madly skilled. I say this as someone who has a professional qualification ( Welcome to my new blog) . That doesn’t make me feel skilled and valuable. Making jam does. Anyway making jam is not hard. It just requires attention. My method of making jam is not methodical or accurate. But it works. I guess now I use my instincts to make jam rather than relying on a recipe. You will need a sterilised jar obviously.

step 1: take a punnet of plums and cut them up (discard the stones), chuck them into your sauce pan with a bit of water. Sauté them on a medium high heat until they start to lose their integrity, much like a dirty politician. Depending on your stove this takes about 15-20 min.

step 2: now I add a good splash of rose water, a sprinkle of ground cinnamon and some lemon juice. Mix well. Then I add granulated sugar. I never measure my sugar because I just rely on my spidey senses but maybe about 1/3rd of a pack. And now you vigorously boil the jam for about 15 min. If you have a thermometer great. Use it. If you don’t, your spidey senses should start tingling when the jam gets thicker and spoonable. By now you should get that wonderful aroma of rose and plum. So intoxicating.

step 3: once jam has reached desired thickness, switch heat off and let it sit in the pan and cool down. It will also thicken as it cools.

step 4: once it’s cooled, put it into your sterilised jar. I don’t know how long it lasts for in the fridge because we eat ours quickly. On hot buttered toast.

See! Easy peasy. Haha ! I‘m joking. Making jam is daunting. But once you get the hang of it its easy and enjoyable and you will get the feel for how much of stuff you need to use. It’s like once you crack how to make salad dressing. You will never follow a recipe again. I did have a picture to show you but something messed up happened and now it’s gone. Sorry. Not sorry.

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Hair cut

by with No Comment BeautyHealth and wellbeingParenting

So I’m sure you can tell from my last few posts that I’ve been in a strange mood. Nostalgic, sad, sentimental. Today the kids finished school. You would think this would make me euphoric. After all I hated home learning (see Hooked on Phonics; Monotony, the dishwasher and crumbs; Chaos, stimulation, noise and chalk boards; Home fracking learning, ). It was painful. For me and the children. It was a struggle to watch my kids miss their teachers and their friends. It was sad to watch them feeling anxious but not having the vocabulary and understanding to articulate those feelings. It was hard to watch them not meet their potential because they were just so confused and overwhelmed by what was happening around them. They were scared. And let’s face it – they were also lazy. But who isn’t right ? But something clicked in both of them a few weeks ago. Suddenly they went from struggling to thriving. And this is in no small part thanks to their fantastic teachers who continually believed in them and coaxed them to finally reveal their light. When I tell you that I feel sad about school finishing, it’s not about the lessons (see Sadness; Ennui, boredom, sadness and zoom doom). I feel deeply heartbroken that neither of my children will be taught by these teachers again. I feel sad that my days of speaking to these teachers and hearing their genuine affection for my kids is over. So I have been moping. And it has showed. For the past few days I have been feeling old and worn out. Drained. I have felt heavy and overburdened. I have talked about my Hagrid hair before (see The maintenance routine of an old librarian; Alone time for an introvert). Finally after a particularly painful session of combing my incredibly tangled hair, I was fed up. And I looked at my husband and said “chop it”. And chop it he did. He took scissors and cut my hair. Short. And I feel lighter. Metaphorically and physically. Here is to the summer.

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Nostalgia

by with No Comment General

Today is one of the rare days that the kids are both in school and I’m not working. I haven’t loaded my day up with a ridiculous amount of errands to run and I’ve given myself a day off from exercise. So I am having a sofa day (mind you that still involves hoovering, laundry, cooking and general other things to do around the house). I switched the tv on and caught some Frasier. And then Golden Girls. And I’m watching the Babysitters Club on Netflix. All of these things are my childhood. Just hearing the names Mary Ann, Dawn, Kristy, Stacey and Claudia just take me back to my childhood when I would hole up in my room reading. I really want to get Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys for my kids to enjoy. Remember Sweet Valley High? Watching Frasier and the Golden Girls as an adult is great though because now I actually understand the humour. As a child/teenager I’m sure most of the jokes were lost on me. The other day my kids were watching Shera. I nearly had a heart attack. I mean talk about a child hood classic. I can’t wait to watch He Man with them. And what about Jem. A few weeks ago we watched the original Karate Kid. It was a trip. It made me cringe but the kids loved it. I wonder what else we will rediscover this summer?

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Sadness

by with No Comment GeneralHealth and wellbeing

Sometimes I just get taken over by inexplicable sadness. Almost a nostalgia that hurts me to my bones. It’s nearly the end of the school year – sad. Nearly 10 years since I left my firm. Sad. My beloved mentor passed away from cancer. Sad. Lockdown is practically over. Sad. These moments of sudden sadness just take me over and I almost feel like I can’t breathe. I let these moments wash over me because if I try to deny them they will just linger. And I don’t want the sadness to linger. I wonder why I feel sadness about these things. Why does it bring me to the brink of tears to think of the school year being finished ? My kids don’t care. They feel relief and happiness. But I feel sad that they are losing some of the best teachers they’ve ever had, who genuinely loved my kids and saw their potential, even when my kids couldn’t see it. Why do I feel sad that lockdown is practically over ? Surely this is what we all wanted. I miss the quiet. I miss the fact that there was no choice but to go to the park and spend hours there watching the kids climb trees. Now we have choices again. We can see people again. And suddenly those lovely days of just the 4 of us isn’t enough. We want to see all our loved ones but I mourn for those peaceful days. Maybe every time something ends it reminds me that we are getting older and life is fleeting. One day we won’t be here. Our loved ones won’t be here. I don’t mind getting old. But I don’t want my family to get old. I wish I could crystallise everyone as they are now and hold on to them forever.

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The price of being female

by with No Comment BeautyExerciseGeneralHealth and wellbeing

Warning- kind of serious post alert. And my mum and dad may find this triggering. Don’t worry mama. I’m not depressed.

So every now and then I like to go out for a run. I’m not some great athlete. I‘m just a chubby old lady who likes to think I can run and do something useful for my health. One day when it was very hot, I decided to wear shorts on my run. After that run I vowed never to wear shorts again because the chub rub was insanely painful. But more importantly, I just got stared at by every man I passed. Even men who were driving. I’ve looked in the mirror. Most of you know me. I don’t get it. When I run my white frizzy hair has created a helmet around my head. My glasses chain keeps smacking my face. I’ve got my nerdy 4 eyes. And I look like a deeply out of breath walrus running down the street. I don’t get it. What is there to look at ? I feel so uncomfortable. Even when I wear leggings and the loosest t shirt I can find I still feel deeply uncomfortable. If I get stared at I wonder what my gorgeous friends Lou and Shaf who are also runners feel like. And I refuse to stop running because my poor daughter now equates white hair with dying so I have to exercise so I don’t die on her. At my age exercise stops being about vanity (I think) and becomes about health. It’s not like my Chump is going to leave me! He’s stuck with me forever. Don’t leave me Chump. I really do like you. I want to live forever so that I can bother my kids and their spouses and become the kind of mother in law that we all dread bahahaha! I also want to eat KFC all the time. This morning I was skipping rope on my balcony. It is my new found love. Skipping rope is so much fun. I feel so free and coordinated. Boom. But some old guy just stopped on the street and stared at me for about 30 seconds. I got so uncomfortable that I had to call my chump husband to come and stand on the balcony with me. Only then did the guy leave. Is this the price of being female ? Constantly feeling uncomfortable? I was outraged. I’ve grown up with this kind of sexist attitude. But I can’t bear the thought of my daughter and her peers dealing with this. Yesterday I watched this movie on a Prime about some people cycling the Trans Am route in the states. There was a female competitor who was amazing. And she was smashing the time. And the poor lady was constantly hounded by these male competitors who couldn’t believe that she was better and faster than them because she was a woman. They accused her of doping and of having a support team. She was just talented and motivated and found something she enjoyed. Sometimes the price of being female is too high. When will it change ?

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Aubergine

by with No Comment FoodHealth and wellbeing

When I was a child I could not stand aubergines. They were slimy and soft and horrible and insipid and just the worst. I couldn’t understand them. Super hard skin on the outside and then all weird and slimy on the inside. I hated them so much I think my mother just refrained from ever cooking them to prevent me from vomiting all over the table (thanks mama love you). But all that changed when I was in my late 20s and went for a cooking class with my chump husband and the legendary Ottolenghi. I love Ottolenghi. Maybe one day I will write a book about how much I love him and how much Plenty and Plenty More have changed my perception of vegetables. How I have crafted dinner parties around my favourite dishes from Jerusalem. But anyway back to aubergines. Ottolenghi changed my life with aubergines and now I can’t live without them. They are my favourite vegetable and I eat them at least twice a week. A good baingain bhartha is hard to beat. But roast aubergines – the way Ottolenghi taught me? Simply the best. But I think I have found a new way to adore aubergines. I have long had my eye on Meera Sodha’s cookbooks but have resisted buying them because I have millions of cookbooks lying around my house. But also because maybe just maybe I am a little bit jealous of Meera. I mean her background is exactly mine. Gujarati and Ugandan. But I have long followed her Guardian column and have tried a few of her recipes in the past (salted miso brownies that I still dream about) and they have all been excellent so I think I just need to get over it and deal with the fact that she is incredibly talented. Anyway back to aubergines. She has this fabulous recipe for stuffed baby aubergines. You guys. Game changer. I’m not going to put the recipe here because you can easily find it should you wish. But make the aubergines. Even if you think you don’t like aubergines. Eat these beautiful little aubergines and remember you CAN make it at home. All you need is one small aubergine.

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Cold arm

by with No Comment BeautyExerciseParenting

So my daughter who is my best friend in life is obsessed with my “cold arms“. She will come and just hang off my arms at random moments of the day, she nuzzles her little face in my cold arms and she searches for them at night. When she doesn’t find them in her bed in the middle of the night, she stomps up the stairs to my bed and stands at the foot of the bed like a freaky little poltergeist and screams out “I want cold arms”. It honestly scares the life out of us to wake up to a little person staring right at you in the middle of the night. Sometimes I tell her – your father has cold arms, go and cuddle his cold arms for a change, as I‘m trying to prepare dinner and he is just sitting there doing a puzzle. Chump. Her response is – his arms aren’t cold. I’ve felt his arms. They are cold. I think cold arms is code for fat arms. I don’t know whether to be offended or offended. But I better start getting on those push ups (see Push ups and the Chump) if I don’t want to be insulted by a child.

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Healthy and easy grapefruit salad recipe

by with No Comment FoodHealth and wellbeing

You guys. This salad. I mean seriously. This salad is life. It is is fresh and beautiful and punchy and just life giving. I should make this salad everyday because I love it and it’s easy but I don’t because I am lazy. Don’t be like me. Make this salad. Everyday. and then come and tell me you made it. You’re welcome.

This is barely a recipe but here it is. Memorise it. It is life.

You will need:

one pink grapefruit, peeled and pith removed. Cut the ruby fruit into segments

one red onion, chopped into bite sized pieces.

one teaspoon of soy sauce

one tablespoon of any sugar you have

juice of one lime or lemon

salt – figure it out yourselves

handful of coriander – as finely chopped as you can

This is how you do it:

combine the grapefruit and onion in a bowl.

mix the soy sauce, sugar, lime/lemon juice and salt in a little container or jar and mix until the sugar is mostly dissolved.

pour the dressing on top of the grapefruit and scatter with coriander.

You can of course add chilli. I don’t. If I was more organised I would throw some toasted desiccated coconut in there too. But I’m not. I will however throw some salted peanuts on top for some crunch.

There now you have my most treasured recipe. It’s like you have a piece of my soul. How creepy.

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Maintenance

by with No Comment BeautyGeneralHealth and wellbeing

Looking in a mirror used to be a past time I rather enjoyed. I would always be so smug that I looked highly average without much effort and used to laugh at all the people who would spend an inordinate amount of time making themselves look highly average. Ah the good old days. Now I look in the mirror and see a decrepit old witch and weep for my long lost youth. I see grey hairs growing abundantly. My once kind of tamed hair is now nothing but a frizz ball. And those greys are a slap in the face. My husband claims he likes the greys, but admits he could do without the frizz. Chump. Sure, I could blow dry my hair and straighten it and put product in so that I could kind of look like myself instead of a bichon frisse on crack but honestly what’s the point!

I’ve stopped looking in the mirror because you know ignorance is bliss and all that. And well my husband has bought season tickets to my show and they are non refundable. And my kids have to love me because I’m all they’ve got.

I occasionally see friends from a safe distance and well they are so blown over by my witty conversation that they don’t even notice I’ve grown caterpillars where my eyebrows used to be and wear the same leggings and workout top every day.

One day when lockdown ends I will have to go back to the beauty salon and get rid of the caterpillars, fix my talons and attempt to brush my hair. But for now the Hagrid look suits me just fine. I don’t even think I would know how to button up a pair of jeans anymore.

Yesterday we met our Noogimi in a park and kept our requisite 2 metres apart and as it had been so long since we’ve genuinely been around people I completely forgot that I have now taken to wearing a glasses chain so that I don’t lose my glasses. My SIL just couldn‘t stop staring at my glasses chain and my grey roots. I’ve officially embraced my inner elderly librarian/decrepit old witch. I don’t know if i ever want to go back to normal. Maybe the world will decide that I have to stay in lockdown because it’s too scary for them to have me on the loose with my glasses chain.