Letters from Wetville

I feel completely disillusioned about community decision making at the moment. Today I met with two friends, kindy mums, about the changes which are happening in six weeks' time at our local kindy. We arranged to talk to the head teacher at kindy (who we all like and respect) at pickup time and she listened and responded to our concerns. The thing that annoys me the most is the acceptance of top down decision making. When I raised the point (the main one for me) that this kindy is a community resource, one which I stumped up raffle money for and committed to sell more tickets at the supermarket later this week on the spot , because after all it is our local kindy, our headteacher said that that is how everything is done nowadays. Do we have to accept that? I felt a brief moment of disappointment that Playcentre hadn't worked out for us (I see what wonderful things it does for people in other centres, but ours seemed to have, to phrase it gently, a poor fit between stated ...

There has been a debate recently on the Hand Mirror (and in further response here ) criticising Anne Else's concern about corner shops marketing a 'school lunch' containing entirely packaged food of very little nutritional value. I was going to post online about my jerusalem artichoke adventure tonight. Having never eaten (nor seen) jerusalem artichokes last year, I read about them and hankered for some in my garden. Corrine very generously sent me some tubers and tonight we had a new culinary experience. FH, Fionn and I liked them. Brighid doesn't get a vote anyway, due to the enormous proportion of evening meals she doesn't bother to eat. I cooked them something like this: 250g packet of bacon, chopped into smallish pieces 8 big cloves of garlic, peeled 1 small onion, chopped about ten medium sized jerusalem artichokes, peeled and cut into even sized pieces lots of butter (perhaps 50g) fresh sage, chopped fresh parsley, chopped Fry half of the bacon and th...

The new project. Brighid and I went to see Laksmi (our fantastic multi-skilled complementary therapist) and she showed me how to do my own lymphatic drainage. I've been having a look at this chart , which I shall print out and stick on the wall. Laksmi was just back from a two week intensive course on visceral manipulation and she did some on me. I will need to listen to her talk as she works for a few more sessions before I start to understand how it works. She did amazing things with my daughter, who loves her. Like so many little girls, Brighid is vulnerable to urinary tract infections with the possibility of kidney problems. I am (at this stage and most likely for the duration) much happier with this holistic way of working with her innards (missing a fancy word here) instead of invasive testing and action via conventional medicine. Still cleaning. Yesterday I even got the ladder out and cleaned the top of the kitchen on one wall and I cleaned the light shade which is n...

We tried some new vegetables today. Earth gems, boiled like spuds only not for quite as long, then some butter over the top and served with roast chicken and broccoli. Let's not dwell on the chicken, possibly the most ethically loaded food around. Everybody ate them! The children called them earth germs and asked to have them again. Sharon Astyk, who is forever writing thoughtful intelligent posts, wrote here about cooking skills and the need to adapt to preparing foods currently unusual to us. While I have some reservations about the extent of the crisis which she predicts (I don't think we are all of a sudden going to lose all role specialisation, not even in 100 years, and the role of food access in social stratification and role specialisation is central), I decided that she makes a valid point. Hence my next project(s): to learn to make and like meals with jerusalem artichokes, globe artichokes and kohlrabi. All of these things are growing in my garden now, so clearl...

I can tell by the way I've been binge cleaning. It is always always a portent. Brighid and I scrubbed the corners of the kitchen floor, with a steelo pad and some baking soda no less. Then we swept and swept and swept the entire kitchen floor and then I washed and then I got cloths out and dried it by hand (it is a small kitchen) so I could get back in there and carry on transforming. I cleaned the shelf of supposedly just tea bags and eggs and the old fashioned scales which hold the eggs (but actually the groaning holder of many recipe books, too old lemons and bananas, school notices, empty bread bags and Inland Revenue mail). I cleaned the top and surrounds of the old chippie fire which hosts the jug, the Kenwood mixer and the sugar jar. I cleaned the top of the stove and the wall around it and even the door of the oven. I cleaned the top of the dishwasher and the surrounds of the slow cooker and the wall around that as well. Then I made sushi. Welcome, spring. When I first lear...

Last weekend we protested against the National government's draconian labour law changes which allow for ninety day fire at will and union representatives only allowed on workplaces with boss permission. In fact, I did not protest as Favourite Handyman did instead this time, while the children and I went to the library. We're not wild about the kids being on the picket line. I have some photos but it turns out that I've not used our lives of working people blog for so long that I cannot remember the password to post again. Serves me right for setting up a seperate blogger account. I need to join with the other fabulous people on the Blackball working class history project group and create an entirely new blog with links to facebook (I think we are supposed twit as well but that can be someone else) and keep it updated regularly. Tomorrow I am on duty at the museum so progress then hopefully. In the meantime, it's all more domestic and even exciting. Fionn plays i...

Slow reading instead of blogging... But I have finished these books: Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth ; Fran McCullough, Good Fat with 100 Recipes and Malcolm Kendrick, The Great Cholesterol Con . I recommend them all. I read Good Fat first and got some more information to support my current leanings towards traditional fats which are solid at room temperature. This was interesting, but an elaboration of what I already knew. The Obesity Myth is, in my opinion, an important book. You should read all of it. Two key points in it concern firstly the fake allegations that weight and health are linked (except in quite extreme cases) and secondly, the role of fat in the social hierarchy of American life. I had not heard of 'anorexic ideation' before, but I see clearly how it works in terms of the norming of very skinny persons as the only people who are not 'fat'. Page 225:In America today, bodies have replaced clothes as the most visible markers of social class. In a cu...