the art of living cheerfully

~ one hundred gratitudes ~

#18 : Walking the Cornish Coastal path and seeing the Bedruthan Steps with my love.

Around every headland was more and more beauty. We were surrounded by it. Fresh air, chatting to my love about everything and nothing and feeling like my life was in proportion and balance next to all this natural beauty.

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A couple of weeks ago I signed up for an e.course called "the art of living cheerfully".

It began today.

I haven't been feeling especially miserable but rather that there are possibilities in life that Frank's diagnosis and the consequent white noise put out of my head.

I have been feeling ready for a small new project.

To spend some time allowing myself to dream and be grateful and seek out the joy every day felt like just what I should be doing right now.

I would like to share a little of the content with you all as the weeks of the course go by.

What attracted me to the course, aside from loving the idea of a project of a creative nature just for me, was Maddie's use of the word "cheerful".

She wasn't promising happiness or a state of Nirvana but a chance to be active in being cheerful.

One of the first exercises is to list one hundred things for which we are grateful.

ONE HUNDRED.

From the past and present, situations and people, experiences and places ... one hundred.

And I am also to write about why I am grateful for these things.

And that is where the joy will start flying about, I think!

Really focusing on why I am grateful for these things will drag them squarely into the forefront of my brain and make the feelings of experiencing them come back.

How bloody cheerful am I going to be doing this?!!

I am already thinking of Cornwall and those blue waters.

And I am smiling...

What are you grateful for?

Meaningful Numbers

A hospital visit yesterday.

A number.

A meaningful number.

7.4

Yeah, baby!
P.S. Look at those mad eyelashes!

Back soon.

Just getting a bit more sleep and spending less time on the computer this week.

It was needed.

My Love the Poet # 2

A week ago saw us at SlackSpace in Colchester for a national evening called The Big Book Bang as part of World Book Night.

Andrew was performing as his alter ego Fred Slattern, Colchester's Slum Poet!

For once Frank was allowed out in the evening and was very excited to come with me to watch Andrew and others perform. When a little music was played Frank did a bit of dancing.

And at one point, I swear, he even channelled Reyna!

The poems were well received and everyone smiled when Andrew took to the stage for the second time with a four and a half year old attached to his leg!

It was a proud evening for me.

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Fred Slattern will be appearing this coming Saturday morning at SlackSpace in a day-long event to raise funds for relief in Japan.

Maybe we'll see you there?

44

Same place as last year, same scarf (must get a new one!) same face.

Just a few more lines but I don't mind that.

Getting older rocks!

Sev arrives home this evening for just 24 hours.

We will be quietly celebrating with honey cake.

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I wish you all a very happy weekend and hope that you and yours are safe.

My thoughts and love are sent out to all in Japan and all who have family and friends there.

Armenian Soup

This recipe is from my oldest and most favourite cookbook : The Cranks Recipe Book by David Canter, Kay Canter and Daphne Swan.

My copy is from 1982!

As I said it's my first cookbook.

Cranks was a wholefood cafe and restaurant in Covent Garden in London for a long time.

It was not fashionable for a long time either.

The food was wholewheat and in most cases brown and a bit of a shock for most people's palates.

But for me, brought up in a family where white flour and processed food are kings it was a revelation.

I spent my pocket money as a teenager buying vegetables and tofu and wholewheat flour. We weren't well off and my parents didn't want to buy food they considered weird and scary.

I was the first to bring an onion into the house!

And a mushroom!

This book revolutionised what food I ate and taught me how to cook.

There are few pictures and so I learnt to not worry about how it was supposed to look and let myself learn from what came out.

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Armenian Soup

Ingredients:

red lentils, rinsed (100g)

dried apricots, unsulphured if poss (100g)

2 large potatoes

vegetable stock (around 2-3 pints) - his needs judging by your own preference of thin or gloopy

lemon, juice of one

ground cumin (2tsp)

parsley, chopped (6tbsp) - I often don't have fresh parsley and so just leave it out, it's still fine

salt & pepper to taste

Method:

Place lentils and apricots in a large pan.

Roughly chop the spud and add to the pan with the remaining ingredients.

Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for around 30 minutes, checking regularly that the lentils aren't soaking up all the stock and making it all burn (I speak from experience! Do not take a bath and leave this soup cooking).

Add more hot water or stock if so.

Allow to cool and blend until smooth.

Reheat to serving temperature and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serves 4-6

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This freezes well and is fine left for a day in the fridge, although you will need to add more water as it thickens too.

I love it.

Mr Muffinmoon loves it.

My Knit & Natter group love it.

Frank falls to the floor clutching his throat and gagging at the mere sight of any soup.

Sigh.

My Funky Tent

Thanks for all your kind comments on my last post.

I was glad to be welcomed back by such an esteemed group of people!

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A couple of days ago there was a knock at the door and we took delivery of this beauty.

My birthday present from Mr Muffinmoon: a beautiful, funky bell tent.

I have always loved the style of these tents and my sister and her partner have one, which we stayed in once when on their farm.

I have no pictures of the inside yet as I want to take lots when we are actually using it and it's full of sheepskins and blankets and cushions, but inside is one open space with the tent pole in the middle.

I love the natural material.

Even the mallet is wooden and these cool tent pegs are so natural and rough that they look like Hagrid whittled them in a free period from teaching at Hogwarts!
I love them.
Is it insane to love a tent peg?
Hmmm... maybe ...

And this past weekend we erected the tent, Mr Muffinmoon being unable to not make comments about large erections, and watered it well. This, you understand, is not to make it grow into a bigger tent or bear tenty fruit but to enable the fibres to swell with the water and then as they dry the whole thing becomes water proof.
For you knitters out there it is blocking for tents.
This is England.
On our first camping trip with it I will find out whether that has worked or not!
It will rain at some point, indeed possibly at all points.
For the moment it sits in the garden, weathering, much like I lie next to my boy every night, weathering these first few weeks of life with Lucky Pump.
Tomorrow I have to change the pump site all alone as Mr Muffinmoon will be out late earning a crust (his job is safe for a few more months, by the way!).
And tomorrow I'll give you the soup recipe.
Blogging every day.
What the ...
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I seem to be an all or nothin' kind of gal at the moment.
Ah, well, so ist das Leben.

Shrove Tuesday

So, ahem, more than a week has slipped by with me not finding time to post.

I will attempt to address the balance by posting more regularly for the next few days.

We are doing fine.

Lucky Pump is ticking over and we even managed to do a site change with no tears on Frank's part.

I cried though.

I spend the day of set change building up to it and get in a bit of a state at the moment, but I recall doing that with the injections and it got easier.

It's Shrove Tuesday today, aka Pancake Day, and Frank is (I'm almost scared to jinx it all by writing it) showing more interest in a variety of foods so we went for pancakes for dessert this evening.

Andrew is great at tossing the pancakes in the pan and he and Frank did that together.

Then they were enjoyed with a little muscovado sugar and lemon juice.

Frank ate two and declared them "really yummy".

I was proud of him as his usual response to an offer of an undesirable food is to make barfing noises and fall to the floor clutching his throat.

I then reply with withering sarcasm, "A simple "No thanks Mummy" would suffice Frank".

And on we roll.

Back soon with tales of my new tent (a birthday gift) and a recipe for the soup we've been going mad for for the past month.

Happy Tuesday, friends.