Tabitha's Excellent Cooking Adventure - Jewish Chicken Soup

My son hasn't been feeling well lately, and today I am going to make Jewish Chicken Soup. I've often heard about the wonderful healing powers of this soup, and once when I was very ill with a virus my friend Leon at work sent me some chicken soup that his wife had made. I really did feel tons better after having it, so today I'm going to attempt it myself.

I've got a recipe that my friend Wesley sent me - it's his grandmother's recipe, so I expect the soup to be even more powerful. So here we go on our Excellent Cooking Adventure. Oh, and lest you suspect me of abandoning my alphabet format, it is no such thing - F is for Family, and family is everything.

The First Day

Of course, as this is an old-fashioned Grandmother recipe, it has to start with a dead hen. None of this effete modern way of buying chicken fillets.

This chicken, according to its label, is 100% antibiotic free, accredited free range, raised on a vegetarian diet and has no added hormones or steroids. Why, in this case, it is wrapped in plastic, is a mystery. Another mystery is why a person who cared about vegetarianism would be buying a chicken.

First thing is to hack it into pieces. This is not how I planned to spend my day; I feel like Hannibal Lecter as I set about dismembering the corpse. The instant I start my grisly work, I am joined in the kitchen by Ferret, who demands his tribute.

I finish the disgusting business of ripping the chicken apart and appease Master with a small piece. It was supposed to be a WHOLE chicken, I tell him. He doesn't care.

Finally I have it all hacked up. What a gruesome sight it is! It goes into the crock pot with a little water.

Once the chicken is merrily crocking away it is time to start the other part of the soup. I'm cheating and using commercial chicken stock.

Look at my horrid old 1950s stove! My glamorous friend Amanda says my kitchen is a National Treasure and has forbidden me to change anything, but she doesn't have to live with it. I can't wait to get it gutted and replaced with a nice, all-white modern kitchen like everyone else has. Don't tell Amanda!

Now it is time to add the vegetables. Of course they are in their naked state. How I wish convenience foods were not evil.

Finally everything is in and cooking away on one of my two functional burners. 

At this point I consider leaving it and going back to work, because this is a work day and I have a daily wordcount to meet, but Wesley's recipe says to keep an eye on it, so I decide to play it safe and stay in the kitchen. I can finish reading my Lemony Snicket book.

These books are absolutely marvellous, and like the old Batman television show, they unfold more and more funniness as one is older, so can be enjoyed in different ways by people of practically any age. I can't recommend them enough!

After about an hour, during which time I finish the book, the two parts of the soup look like this. The left-hand picture is all blurry because of steam. It's not my crappy photography. It's not!

The vegetable part is ready, but the chicken still has some way to go, so I can get back to work for a short time before I must leave for my dance lesson.

Because of a very late start to the day, and the huge amount of time I've spent on this soup, I still have less than half of my daily wordcount when the alarm goes off to tell me to go to my dance lesson. I turn the crockpot down to low before I leave, just for safety - it's already had more than two hours but I think it still wants more cooking. By the time I've got back from my lesson and had a late lunch, the chicken is falling away from the bones; a little poking with the fork exposes smooth, clean bones, so it is cooked enough according to Wesley's grandmother's recipe. I turn off the pot to allow it to cool before the next step, and return to my desk for a final session.

Three hours later, the chicken is still almost boiling, so I decide to leave it to cool overnight.

The Second Day

Next morning it's cold, so I am able to continue. I cut it all into tiny fragments, carefully picking out the bones. Not that there's much cutting to do - it practically shreds itself at the slightest contact. This is the worst part of the whole exercise; I absolutely detest getting into food with my bare hands. 

Mercifully, the process is reasonably fast, and soon I can add all the chicken into the proto-soup.

This leaves me with a pile of bones and some sketchy-looking liquid in the crockpot.

This is all that remains of a once-proud bird

Not much to do now - I pour in the sketchy liquid and stir it all together, together with oregano and a little garlic powder.

Bring it to the boil and voila! My own, nearly-authentic Jewish Chicken Soup! It can't be completely authentic, I think, for my kitchen and equipment are not Kosher, and neither were the ingredients, but it's as near as I'm going to get.

E is for Effort - How Not To Waste It.

Today I was thinking about work. Mostly about how little I've got done the last year. But it's going better now, because of one simple adjustment I've recently made to how I go about things.

Planning the Day

Instead of looking at my huge list of things I need to accomplish, freaking out and plotzing all over the place (don't you love that word?) I've taken to starting the day with my morning coffee at my desk, and making a short list of things I am going to work on that day. It's been an absolute revelation, which really ought not to have been the case, because in my 20 years in I.T. the amount of money my various employers spent on sending me on management courses would probably have bought a Federal politician. As a result of doing this, in the last two weeks I've seen my Todo list shrink to a much more comfortable level, as several major things have been crossed off, and all around it is far less panic-inducing than it was, with a consequent enhancement of my productivity (see how I can talk the management talk?).

So, today being my day off, I started by deferring the work I need to do on the long story I have in progress (first revisions and proof edit) till Monday. That shrank things down a bit, and then I turned over a new page in my big spiral book (the Day Book) and laid out my day.

The Day Book

Here's my book for today. It's already 1024, so it's been filled out.

The Day Book is also something I've recently started. It's just a spiral notebook - foolscap size, so there's plenty of room. At the top I write the day. This is important - if I don't even know what day it is, I'm in more trouble than The Book can provide. Doing this gives me a small glow of accomplishment already. It's pathetic, I know, but there's just something about writing the heading of a list. Don't judge me.

Next, I put in any fixed engagements. Tonight there is a dance party, so I have written it in the lower half of the page. It's enclosed in a rectangle, because that's the convention I use.

Next the things that have to be done today go in, and they get enclosed in an oval, because they're not fixed times, but must be done at some point. Today, I must take Emily for a bath, and pick up and drop off at the cleaners.

Next, I make a short list of what I'll be working on, for this day only. Today, I've chosen Bat Rescue, WHB Floors and the novel writing course I'm doing. The course, because it is not part of my Work Plan for the year, can count as either a work or leisure activity.

As the day is already underway, I've already been talking to someone about the bat rescue. I've got my vaccinations done and I'm ready to start volunteering. Now you can see why I use the big size of notebook. The rest of the page can be used for notes as the day develops. Bat rescue is important. Our local bats, the Grey-headed Flying Fox, are an important part of our ecology, as they pollinate.

Grey-headed Flying Foxes. Aren't they divine?

The next item on the list, WHB Floors, is my cleaning assignment for Fridays. WHB stands for Weekly Home Blessing. It's a feature of the Flylady home management system, which I can't recommend enough, and if you are interested to know more you can find it here: www.flylady.net. It's free and very, very effective.

Finally, the course. As part of the coursework I must write 750 words a day on my project and report progress every Friday, so that is the third item on today's list.

So there's the day laid out. I've already spoken to the bat people, and there's a bit of admin work I still need to do for them. I've started on the floors - preliminary work is shoe cleaning and laundry, as this enables me to clear my closet floor for vacuuming. Now, before I settle down to write my wordcount, I decide to do the other stuff. I can visit the cleaners on the way to the dog wash, and then that will be crossed off and I can settle down with more coffee to do the rest. See how the day is taking shape, with no wasted trips because I planned it so I only have to go out once? A big part of productivity for me is not spinning my wheels.

Because I'm going to Petstock anyway, I take the opportunity to stock up on the good dog biscuits. That's another trip I won't have to make - time saved on some future day.

Before

After

I'm back at my desk at 1150, with dry cleaning put away, a clean dog, and a comfortable feeling that the day's going the way I want. Next is to deal with matters arising from tasks 1 and 2, because once I settle down to work on that book I don't want them jostling about in my head. I must provide some information to the bat rescue group, turn over the washing and pick up and vacuum the floors. 

By one o'clock that's all done, and I've had lunch, so I can turn my energy to the book. I need to write 750 words today; that's not a terribly big ask, and then I can actually have some of my day off for quality time with the kids. That's a great incentive. 

As I've mentioned before, I work best in short bursts, so as breakout activities during the next couple of hours I check my email and messages, and check and approve a paperback proof and order a proof copy. I've got my wordcount by 3:30, leaving a couple of hours for quality time with the kids.

It hasn't been much of a 'day off', but everything I need to achieve has been done, plus a few extras, and I'm feeling pretty well on top of things and looking forward to some leisure, and later, the dance party. 

What I Take Away From This.

There are two aspects to what I see from today. One is how focussing down to a small list can concentrate your effort so that you actually do get stuff done. The other aspect is how much less tiring it is. On days like this before I adopted this 'short list' system, I'd be exhausted by three-thirty, or even earlier. Now, although I've worked hard and I'm tired, it's nothing that a short rest won't fix, and I'm looking forward to drinking and dancing the night away with my friends this evening.

D is for Dogs

Deerhounds are shown 'au naturel', so there's very little grooming to be done even for a big show. Of course it's etiquette to make sure your dog is clean in the ring, so I generally give Emily a bath on the Friday, and then five minutes with the brush is enough to have her ready for the ring. Except for one thing.

The breed standard tells us that the fur on the ears should be short and fine, like that of a mouse. And they do have that, but unfortunately they also grow long, silvery fur over the top of that, and so to have her really perfect for a show, this all has to be stripped out. It's a dreadfully laborious business, because it has to be done by hand - pick, pick, pick, a few hairs at a time, and you don't realise just how much of it there is until you think you've done it all.

I'm gearing up for a whole bunch of shows that I've entered in July and August. We're entered in this year's Royal Melbourne Show, where Emily was Best of Breed last year, and at the last show we were at she didn't perform well in the ring, skipping and hopping like a prancing unicorn instead of displaying her beautiful, even gait. So she clearly needs to get back into practice, hence the many shows I've entered, and this weekend there's a dog match hosted by the Scottish Terrier Club of Victoria, so I'm planning to show her there. 

A dog match is a fun event. There are no championship points, it's purely social, so there's no pressure, and the serious players in the show world aren't going to be there (unless they are also there purely for fun). It's a great way to get your feet wet if you haven't shown before, or have a new puppy, or for that matter if your dog isn't actually pedigreed. I've seen greyhounds entered in a Scottish Breeds match as 'smooth-coated deerhounds'. It's all a bit of fun, and as a bonus, the Scottish Breeds matches always take place in the context of a Scottish Heritage day or Highland Gathering, so it's a lovely day out. Men in kilts, pipe bands, haggis for lunch - what's not to love! And to boot, these matches often have a fancy dress event.

Fancy dress for the hounds. Look at my friend Melissa's wonderful costumes!

So today as my breakout activity I'll be stripping away at the ears. I can't do it for long at a time because Emily hates it. My previous hound would stand there patiently while I did the lot, but bitches are a lot more feisty, and Emily is a Princess with a sense of entitlement the size of New York.

I've just learned from my friend Lene that there are rubber latex finger things - they look like tiny condoms - that you can roll over your fingers and then you get a much better grip on the fur and the stripping goes much easier. I was all set to hunt about to buy some, when I realised they look just like the fingers on my disposable latex gloves that I use for washing up. So today, we're going to put that to the test. But first, a quick trip to the vet to remove the stitch she had from removing a tiny dermoid cyst.

These are the latex fingers my friend recommended.
We no longer need wonder where Mr Trump gets his condoms!

Stitch out and everything's fine, although I note with concern that she now weighs 40.5 kilos which is quite a bit more than her optimal weight, and I think I'll stop leaving out food 24/7. Her eating habits have changed quite a bit since our other dog joined the family, and I think she's eating in response to other prompts than pure hunger. I decide to try having the biscuits out only in the morning.

So at 0930 I finally start work. I'm continuing with yesterday's task, so my goal for the day is 750 words on the new book, and this will likely be punctuated with lengthy chat or phone sessions with the people who've so kindly offered to share their ER experiences with me. I'm going to start writing anyway, though; as a wise writer once said, 'you can edit crap, but you can't edit nothing.' I wish I could remember who it was.

When I break for breakfast I try the latex gloves and they do indeed work extremely well, much better than bare fingers, except that it is more difficult to separate and I feel I am grabbing too many hairs at a time, so that it's more uncomfortable for her. I return to work, unsure whether it's just that it was the first attempt for the day and I didn't catch her in the right mood. 

By 1100 I've got 100 words but I'm now in a chat session with an informant, so writing pauses to focus on this. I'm in awe at the generosity of all the people who've responded to my appeal for psychiatric hospital experiences. I gain a lot of insight from my informant, and when our chat is over, I have another go with the latex glove and it goes much better; Emily is calmer about the process when it's not the first attempt of the day, and I've now got pretty well all of the outside of the left ear done, and I'm sold on this method. 

One ear done! The inside edges still need to be cleared.

The conclusion from today is that the latex gloves are an absolute gift. You have to be a little more careful about not grabbing too many hairs at a time, but it goes so much faster that you can get a lot more done before your hound gets restless.

Now, as this is supposed to be a literary blog (koff koff, hollow laugh) a word about books. I'm currently reading the Survivors series, by Erin Hunter. All the characters are dogs, some feral, some stray. This is first class YA/children's fiction, and this series deals in a subtle way with the problem of the Outsider; the foreigner in a society who struggles to be accepted. It's riveting stuff, an exciting story, and if you're looking for something to buy for your kids, or for that matter a good read for yourself, it's a great pick.

C is for Course - The Things We Do For Love

The Things We Do For Love. This is an old theme, and rather a hackneyed one, and many second-rate movies have been made about it. 

But there are more kinds of love than the merely romantic. There is family, animals, causes, even, for some people, cruelty. Let's not even go there in today's political climate.

The kind of love I'm thinking of today, though, is our love for our friends. It's a low-key, everyday sort of love. It's not glamorous; it's more like your comfortable old slippers than your Manolos. But it's very powerful, and that's why I enrolled in a course this year about how to write a novel.

Of course I already know how to write a novel. I've several published, and another one almost ready to go, and another one on the drawing board, and two in progress. But this course is run by an old and valued friend, and she has asked me to take the course in order to write a review of it.

So back in March I blithely said yes, enrolled, and I've read all the materials and done all the assignments, just like a real student, because that's the only way I'll be able to write an honest and legitimate review. But, as I already had projects on the go this year, I didn't do more than was explicitly instructed. I have not Gone The Extra Mile.

Because the course has, as its practical component, actually writing an actual novel, I didn't want to use the one I was already writing for its purposes. Instead, I chose to start one that I've had kicking around in my head for some time and never got around to. This was because part of the course naturally deals with preparatory things such as outlining, and I felt it would be a bit useless if I took as my practical component a book where all that's already been done. And, because it wasn't my main focus for the year, most of my work effort has gone on the children's book I'm writing, which is being rather difficult and slow. As far as the course went, I've checked regularly for input, read everything, done all the set work, but I have done nothing else.

Today, we got an email instructing us to be writing at least 750 words a day on our draft and reporting progress every Friday. Shit just got real! Therefore, it now behoves me to pull up my socks and take a more rigorous approach to the new book, to which I affectionately refer as BFT.

My usual process for starting a project is as follows:

1. Clear my desk, because I work better without a mess.

2. Setup - this is creating folders, setting up a physical file, and creating a spreadsheet to track progress, chart the outline if it gets difficult, store names of people who have helped with information or are likely beta readers, etc.

3. Write a detailed outline. (Mind you, what I call detailed is probably pretty sketchy to some people.)

4. Start writing.

So today, although my instincts are screaming at me to dive into my already-started draft and pound away furiously, I'm starting the slow, precise, plodding way, by clearing my desk.

Here it is. My secret shame. It's nearly always like this.

This is not a full-on declutter and clean - it's just clearing the decks for action, so it doesn't really take very long. I always feel the time spent on doing this pays for itself many times over.

Now I can hear myself think.

By this time it's 10:43. Don't judge me; I was late getting started today. I overslept, and then there were various things demanding my attention, so that I didn't really start planning my day until about 1000. 

The next thing is setup. This is already partly done, because I've actually written the beginning of the book, so there is a folder on my computer and so on, but it needs some work - one thing, for example, is that I'm sure I remember writing an outline in point form, and yet I can't find what I've done with it. Part of the trouble is probably that I had one folder in Education, for the course, and one in Standalone Books, for the novel, and there are no doubt things saved in both places. Virtual setup will mean finding everything and getting it stored in a sensible way, so that I know what I've got to work with.

The book's official folder contains a progress spreadsheet, the draft I've done so far, and a document called 'Story Arc', which I did for the course. It does not have the detailed outline that I'm sure I remember writing. However, neither does the other folder, the one under Education that is for all the course materials. The Story Arc one does constitute a rough outline, so I print that off, and I also print off my draft so far, which is shorter than my optimistic memory suggested at about 1700 words. 

These documents, together with a fresh spiral notebook, go into a manilla folder, which has Barefoot Tango written on the front in big black letters. Doing this comforts me in some perverse way.

It's now coming up to 1100, and I've still written nothing, yet I feel much better equipped. It's like getting on your horse with the comfortable awareness that he's been brushed, bridled, saddled and the girths are tight and the shoes checked. Everything is in good order. I've found over the years that this approach makes a huge difference to my productivity, and I count the time as well spent.

The physical part of my setup. This can all be easily transported.
I've used a purple folder in honour of Flylady.

Now for the outline. The Story Arc document is alright as far as it goes, but I do like my outline to be in point form. I read it over and I'm fairly satisfied with it as it stands, because I'm a pantser at heart and only really want the bare bones, so that also gets printed off for the physical file.

Now just a slow and careful read over what I've already written, and I'm good to continue with it. I'm only shooting for 750 words, as instructed. Now this is where the procrastination starts to rear its head. I give in to it to the extent of making a fresh cup of coffee, because that's legitimate self-care, but I don't allow myself to pander to it any further.

It's always hard getting started - that Blank Page Syndrome - and this is where Flylady comes into her own. I may have mentioned the Flylady system before. It's primarily designed for housework, but actually it can be applied to any large endeavour. It was the Flylady techniques that got me through law school. So what I do here is I set my timer, and in order that it won't seem too daunting, I set it for 15 minutes.

As Flylady says, you can do anything for 15 minutes!

When the timer goes off the first time, I've got 181 words and finished a section. This brings with it its own problems, though; as I've finished a section, I have come to a point where my protagonist is being brought into the Emergency Room after an overdose, a situation of which I have no experience. It's time to go to Facebook, to see if any of my medical friends can help out. I put out a call for nurses, doctors and ambos. I also request that anyone who's overdosed and been taken to the ER contact me privately in strict confidence. I only hope I'll get a response, because this whole part is totally necessary to the plot, and although I don't really, I suppose, need to talk about the actual arrival and the ER, I think it will be a very dramatic scene and I want to have it in.

So while I wait for nibbles on that, I'll work on something else for a bit; I have several administrative tasks, so I attend to those, and that brings me up to 1235. Checking back on Facebook, I find one kind soul has shared an ER experience, and hopefully this will be enough to get me started on the new bit. The important thing is that I didn't have to waste any time waiting for stuff - I had other things that also needed to be done, and in that small hiatus I've taken care of them, and so now both the other items that were on today's plan are now completed. That takes me till 1330, by which time I'm starting to get responses from my research appeal. I need to give my attention to the confidential chat session with my informant, and I'm getting really good material, so I don't regret the time spent not writing; this is all part of the process, and often I don't know what I need to know until I'm trying to write that bit.

By the time five o'clock rolls around I've squeezed out a painful 659 words, but I'm not satisfied with what I've written; I don't think I'm quite there with the authenticity yet. Once I get a real feeling for what it's like in there, it will flow easily. So I start trawling on youtube. This stuff is not comfortable watching, but I find one that shows an actual stomach-pumping, and although it's in German, I can get a sense of the kind of dialogue that's needed.

I eventually get the wordcount I've been aiming for; it all flows more easily once I have an  idea of what I'm writing about. Nevertheless, it's taken all day including all the research, and I'm dreading what my life is going to be like for the next few months. I have got not one word done on the book I'm officially writing, and nor have I done any of the many things I needed to do, beyond dealing with the mail, and stripping a bit of fur from my dog's ears.

This is Emily. She has to have long fur stripped from her ears for shows.

The thing I take away from today is that preparation is everything. Sure, I worked all day and only got 750 words (well, 781). But without the research, without the setup, without the comfort of having my ducks in a row, I wouldn't have got any. Perhaps 10 words or so that I would make up in desperation and later delete. So the motto, as always, is RELY ON THE SYSTEM.

B is for Bernie - Music Review - The Human Condition

The Human Condition, latest offering from Bernie Manning, is the perfect accompaniment to a sofa and a rainy afternoon. The overall feeling is of looking back over a life well lived. The material is divided into sections according to the subject matter; there is a nostalgia section, yet the general feeling throughout this collection is of nostalgia. There's a love section, but again, when you listen to the album as a whole, it's easy to see it as one long, rambling, affectionate love letter from the artist to his wife.

As the album has been presented in sections, I'll preserve that same organisation in my review, dealing with each in turn.

The Human Condition

The title track opens with a foot-tapping jazz sound to introduce a spoken poem. This, a spoken poem with musical and/or special effects accompaniment, is a favourite technique of Manning's. The poem doesn't give a very optimistic view of the human condition.

Love

This, the largest section in the album, has four tracks, and helps to give the work as a whole that character of a complex work addressed to the artist's wife. It opens with Have You Ever Fallen In Love, in which the soft, friendly voice of Bruce Haymes speaks of the early stages of love in a way that was so evocative that I found myself swept back to the far-off days of my own courtship.

The second track in this section, Eyes Across The Room, seems to be about 'love at first sight,' a thing in which I don't believe, but there's a deep authenticity to Manning's lyrics; even when I disagree with him about a thing, there's no mistaking the sincerity of his words. Of course, at the end of the day it really doesn't matter whether love at first sight is a thing or not; if it was a thing for a particular couple, then it was a thing for them. We don't all need to share the same definitions of everything. I couldn't help thinking Colleen is a lucky woman to have inspired such devotion, spanning a lifetime.

I didn't really understand the next track, Love Without Words. It has a lovely sound, and yet the poetic emphasis of Manning's work is such that I tend to seek more comprehension of the lyrics than I would normally worry about with songs. The view of love presented in each stanza seemed so discouraged and dark, and yet the sound of the refrain is so upbeat and cheerful. Perhaps it is that very dichotomy that the song shows us.

In the final track of the section, Love Is, the whistled theme is quietly compelling as it leads into a modern-day counterpart of the famous verses of St Paul. The feeling of nostalgia is retained in this track, leading seamlessly into the next section.

Nostalgia

The single track in this section, Play For Me, is so compelling that as I listened I found myself swept into a review of my own life. Manning is about the same age as I am, and thoughts of Eric Clapton swept me into a veritable orgy of reminiscence. How radical we were, and how respectable we are now, our teeth and claws blunted by the rolling decades. Today, young people look at me and Bernie and see old people in cardigans, yet we too have been tigers in our time; more fierce, perhaps, than today's pampered young can imagine.

Faith

Another single track, Believe is an upbeat, motivational song, opposing itself to the anomie of the uber-cool. After the nostalgia of the preceding track, this one shows that the nothing has been lost - it's all still there, the passion, the fire, the stern will.

Hope

The sole track in this section, Alienation Blues, deals with That Time in a relationship - the time that comes, sooner or later, in every long relationship, when empathy fails, when the ardour of first love has cooled and the long, slow, wonderful merging has not yet taken hold, a time when many lose faith and the rewards are only for those who can hold on through the long night. Manning is one of those who has been able to keep the faith, and this is apparent in the song; its stance throughout is one of 'us' rather than of 'me', a thing which I found telling and important.

Life

Kindness Lane opens with a sound that's oddly reminiscent of Strawberry Fields. It's a surreal poem, and rather dark, yet its theme is one of hope; a note of kindness will see us through, as a beacon when all seems to be lost, we may cling to kindness and in it, find our salvation.

Didn't It Rain was one of my favourite tracks on this album. It has a lovely jazz sound, and the lyrics, although rather repetitive, are like a love note to the artist's wife, supported by a wonderful blues piano.

Death

Goodbye Leonard Cohen, as the title suggests, is a tribute on the death of that great artist, Leonard Cohen. As such, it reflects Cohen's particular style. I have to say this track didn't quite come off for me. Haymes' gentle tenor isn't, in my opinion, the right kind of voice for this material, and I found myself wishing for the rough, gravelly voice of Jeff Burstall, who seems to be no longer part of the team.

Survival

The first song in this final section, Fight, is a boppy, upbeat song that had my feet tapping. It's a cheerful depiction of the struggle implicit in daily life, to hold onto what one has that is of value.

The final song in the album, Before The World Ends, is a complex offering. It opens with a conventional song, with a poignant sense of 'last chance', of the yearning to be the person one dreams of being, while there is yet a little time. It spoke to me like no other track in this album. There is a dizzying sense of the day that is coming for us all, that is even now waiting in the wings of the day, to make its appearance perhaps sooner than we expect. Halfway through the track, the music gives way to a series of spoken poems: Autumn, Winter, Spring (with its note of emerging hope), Summer, with its views of joy and plenty, but with an ominous note sounding, then Day and Night, and finally, The Journey and The Volcanoes of Mars. Manning does this visual imagery thing so well - the poems almost paint themselves on the retina as one listens. The final words of this last poem sum up what I felt was a driving thought behind the whole album: 'before the world ends, I want to live.'

A is for Animal

I've let this blog languish for far too long, and I'm determined to rehabilitate it. Over time, I've found the most fun thing to do is these alphabet sequences. They satisfy at once my nerdish love of correct ordering and my writerly love of randomness. So without further ado, today's focus is A for Animals.

These are my animals.

The grey cat in the front of the picture is Ferret. Ferret is an elderly cat, and for a couple of years he's been steadily losing a trickle of weight. It's very slow, but steady. The vet charted it on a spreadsheet. Now we've had a full blood workup, and there are no signs of anything wrong at all - all organs are functioning well, there aren't any signs of cancer or infection of any kind, basically he's a healthy cat, but he still is losing weight.

Late last year I embarked on a course of rich feeding and constantly tempting him to consume extra snacks. It's hard going, because Ferret isn't really much of a foodie, but after two months of this I took him back to the vet and the vet said we've halted the weight loss, and he was more or less stable. The recommendation was that I continue what I've been doing for another three months and then we see him again.

Unfortunately, then I became very ill, and the constant snacks fell by the wayside for a while, but we're back on it now. This morning, Ferret has had a small bowl of cream, although he wouldn't drink all of it, and I have cooked two slices of bacon which I'll cut up small to tempt him in the afternoon.

This is Ferret back in 2012. He was quite chubby then.

I'll welcome any comments from my readers, if you have any ideas of different things that might tempt Ferret to eat more.

Now that's Ferret, but he's far from the only animal in my life, or in the world for that matter. Let me introduce you to the late RooRoo.

RooRoo came into my life one dreary Friday night. I had just lost my beautiful dog, and I was grieving. He walked into my house, demanded food, and settled down to stay. He was with me for twelve wonderful years, and I always felt he'd rescued me more than I'd rescued him. When he died, I started RooRoo Day as a living memorial to him. It's an easy movement to be part of; all you have to do is an act of kindness for an animal, on that day. RooRoo Day is 14 May every year. I chose that date because that was the day he first walked into my house. I never knew how old he was, but he was fully adult, and the vet guessed about three, so I always observed 14 May as his birthday, and now it is his memorial day.

There's a Facebook event for it every year, and you can find this year's one HERE, in case you'd like to join it and perhaps share your ideas. You don't have to, of course. There's no sign-up required for RooRoo Day, no fees or costs - all that's needed is the will to celebrate it. There are lots of things you can do that don't cost much, or even anything at all. Please join me in this.

We have a poster that gives the basics of the day; if you feel you'd like to put one or two up, just email me at Tabitha.Ormiston.Smith@gmail.com, and I'll send you the pdf. It's displayed below, but there's also a version that's less heavy on the coloured toner, which I can get for you.