A NEW YEAR, A NEW BEGINNING, HOPEFULLY A YEAR WHICH WILL BRING SAFETY FROM COVID 19, A YEAR TO COME TO TERMS WITH LOSS AND FIND PEACE AND HAPPINESS AND A POSITIVE WAY FORWARD.
In amongst the dross of last nigh’s television came a realistic look at the situation in our hospitals as it was in June 2020 and the weeks that followed. it was frightening, sad and didn’t gloss over what was building up. The effect it was having on staff was grim, the faces riven with grief and the marks of their masks deeply pitted in their cheeks and foreheads.
Connie on the verge of giving up -” I’m supposed to be in charge and I don’t know what to say to them.” Apart from working with her staff, she and her senior colleagues had to ring families to give the news of death. Noel Garcia who manned the reception desk and was loved by patients and staff fell ill to the virus and when his life support was turned off, Connie Beauchamp had the unenviable task of gathering her staff together to tell them. Each reacted in a different way as the shock hit them, it was difficult to remember this was acting, that this was a television soap such was the quality of the writing, directing and acting.
The cast must surely have been drained after the recording. As they stood there, doctors, nurses and care staff, Jacob took a telephone call, a multi vehicle road traffic accident with two critical on the way in. Seven went out to greet the ambulances to deal with more trauma. A reminder that our hospitals are under the greatest challenge they have ever had to face. It was harrowing and a real wake up call to follow the guide lines of precaution.
SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE
One of the most original Christmas presents I received was the most striking. It came through the post, a simple card with a handwritten verse,
We cannot share a cuppa for we’re busy here and there,
But often I think about you and remember you in prayer.
So I’m sending you a teabag to make a cup of tea and when you’re sitting drinking it may you remember me!
Inside was a teabag. Here’s an idea which can be used at any time of year and is probably the most economical gift you will every find and one that will cheer a friend.
I can’t help feeling sorry for this man. Although he was despised by many, I didn’t like him myself, his talents were very misguided, his ego through the roof and his sense of power verged on megalomania, this picture is of a forlorn man maybe reflecting on his life within Number 10 and on his future. I have known men with influence overstep the mark and leave the building with just a tell tale brown box full of memories and it’s a sad end. But I can’t help wondering where Dominic Cummings will pop up next, who is he ringing, what will he be doing this coming year, what is he planning inside that domed head?
WHAT’S COOKING?
My other delight over the last couple of weeks was having time to read Susan Farrell’s book My Homeplace Inheritance. The subtitle ‘Recipes for Life from my Irish Country Childhood’ sums it up and brought me back to my own growing up. Her life has its roots in the countryside of Tyrone and Armagh and when she talks of the Bramley apples ‘grown for cooking but sweet enough eat raw’ I remember being a young wife and a man coming to the door with a huge box of Bramleys.
I bought a dozen and once plumped up in the saucepan they were more like pineapples so delicious they were. For Susan it was ‘old style living’ walking everywhere, eating well, having fun, debating everything, being outside and growing food. Sounds idyllic in this day and age of lockdowns and Internet screens. Fishing for salmon in the Blackwater River with her grandfather and sending them off to the Great Northern Hotel in Belfast for serving that evening reminded me of fishing for mackerel in Belfast Lough at midnight.
I was about twelve and once we’d hauled our catch I was invited to row us back to shore. Of course my back was to the jetty so I didn’t know where I was going but it’s easy I was told by the old fisherman, just keep inside the silver path of the moonlight.
I also identify with her description of the big pot of spuds and thirteen people round a table ready to devour them, skins still on and butter. Nothing nicer.
We both had a big wooden barrel outside the back door to catch fresh and pure rainwater so good for washing hair, made it soft and shiny.
Granny Rules OK
I particularly loved reading about her times with Nanny Wylie who measured out ingredients in handfuls. ‘I never saw her use scales for anything.’ Like me she learned at her grandmother’s knee. My memory is watching my own beloved granny making wheaten bread, shaking the handful of flour over the black baking tray and then rocking it from side to side to spread it evenly and even as I write I can hear her wedding ring clicking on the sides as she rotated it.
Shopping in McQuillan’s store in Portadown Susan describes the big block of Cheddar cheese being cut into portions with the cheese wire. My village store was in Whiteabbey where Mr Bernett mesmerised with the bacon slicer.
Susan writes: ‘The bacon slicer was designed to move the joint back and forth against the spinning blade and the shop assistant caught the individual slices, put them on some greaseproof paper, then weighed the pile. When these rashers went on the pan there was no seepage nor was there the milky froth we get nowadays for bacon was dry cured then, the rind sparkling like rhinestones from the little flecks of salt and it was always crisped up into a honey coloured band of flavour.’ The mouth waters at the thought. In Burnetts eggs came out of a big crock, tea leaves were weighed on brass scales and a poke was made from brown paper to contain them and you sliced your own bread when you got home. There were big jars of currents and raisins and peel for Christmas cakes, we all had to stir the mixture and make a wish before it was poured into the cake tin and into the oven. The knitting needle was close by to check if it was cooked in the middle, if it came out clean it was done. When I was growing up the family all spent the day with my Granny. We were 22 one year but once we were 13 and, unlike Susan, we were superstitious and had to arrange two tables in the dining room with a split between them as 13 was an unlucky number to sit down together, apparently this related to the Last Supper.
Memories Are Made Of This
No way could even 13 gather any more and New Year’s Eve was a very different affair. Our best was sometime ago when the house vibrated with music and singing, silly games like eating sugared doughnuts without licking your lips and seeing which of the men could stretch out a chest expander best. Then at midnight the bells chimed with the hooters and the ships horns – before fireworks blocked everything out – and we stood out on the roadway to sing Auld Lang Syne. Imagine our delight when neighbours came out too; they had Scottish relations staying and we linked arms crying and laughing with emotion! When a dark haired handsome Scot first footed us with a piece of coal, everyone came in for mulled wine and mince pies and life was perfect. Very different this year. When I opened the front door to let the old year out and the new year in, there wasn’t a soul around, few lights on in houses, a single ship hooter and three fireworks.
Thank you Susan for your book and all the recipes from beef tea to Auntie Bessie’s griddle soda farls, even Dal from Madhur Jaffrey’s Eastern Vegetarian Cooking. Susan became a chef working in Belfast and in Cyprus, then a lecturer in adult education, has written about food and appeared on television – always food, the making and sharing and she promises there’s talk of a supper club in her adopted homeplace, Rostrevor. What a talent. And now I will go and have an apple crumble from my own home grown apples and crumble weighed out by hand and a good dollop of cream on top. Friday will be time enough to start another diet.
ART IMITATES LIFE
Over last weekend I heard of a real life senior nurse who worked a 48 hour shift with few breaks, that is dedication but it’s also taking a toll on the mind and body which will take a long time to recover. Add to that stress the during that time she had to ring a wife and mother to tell her her husband had died. I’m afraid that, if you have no connection with the NHS, you like me will have absolutely no idea of what is going on in our hospital wards which mades the like of Casualty an important programme. Someone has made a huge mess of our hospital care, paying such pitiful wages that staff have left the service, short staffing meaning these long unacceptable hours of work, treating overseas workers with contempt so they are forced to go home and we are suffering this as they are dedicated workers and beautiful people. When we escape this pandemic I hope pressure will be brought to bear on our ‘assembly’ such as it is to put these matters right. I have great respect for our health minister Robin Swann and he is our hope for a safer and fairer future. He’s even being talked of as a new first minister – interesting thought. Keep safe and well Robin.
Thank you to daughter Susie for the sunset picture last week and the hopeful sunrise picture today. The sun will shine.
I wish you a New Year which is positive, healthy, and hopefully, happy and full of good things and gentle thoughts.
Ponder on this – I think it is our responsibility to heal where possible and save where we can but never to punish or control other people. Open to debate.
