Tweet
Treats is a recipe book that was conceived on Twitter. All the recipes
in Tweet Treats are in under 140 characters or less as submitted to
compiler and editor Jane Travers over the medium of Twitter. There are
over 1000 recipes in all. 140 of those were submitted by celebrities
ranging in talent and glamour from Keith Barry to Paula Abdul, Neil
Gaiman to Ryan Tubridy. The rest came from your average tweeps including
a couple from little old me! It contains a foreward and some great
cooking tips from Marco Pierre White. All the royalties of the book go
the deserving charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.
But there’s only one way to review a cookbook. This is how my Tweet Treat day went:
8am: breakfast: Look longingly at @HazelkLarkin’s Tropical Breakfast “1 ripe papaya, 1 fresh lime. Seed, peel & chop papaya. Squeeze limejuice over papaya. Eat. Yum.”
but as papaya is not really one of my store cupboard items, I leave it
for another day and go with @Countrylets Fruity Porridge instead. “Boil
450ml watr, 1tbsp b/sugr, 1tsp cinmn, 2tbsp map/syrup. Lower heat add
75g oats, stir 5min, remove from heat. Stir in apples, sultanas. Serve” Deliciously good start.
11am: I swear porridge makes me hungrier. I peruse the snacks. Spy @LevParikian’s Perfection “Really good Stilton, a russet apple, walnuts. Maybe a glass of port. No need to muck around but take time to savour flavours.” but as it’s a tad early for port, mark it for later and go with @JenOConnell of SBP’s Instant Croque Monsieur instead. “Toast 1 side of bread. Grated swiss, drizzle cream, smidge mustard. Mix, spread on other side of bread, grill.” Sure beats Starbucks CM offering.
1pm Lunch: Prepare @SarahBrownUK’s (yes, the former PM’s wife) Easy Vegetable Soup. “Add chopped leek, carrot, potato to homemade chicken or veg stock, heat for 20 mins & season, yum.”
Smells good. Leave it to simmer while I collect the kids. Surprise
surprise, one eats it and asks for more the other looks at me like I’ve
offered him bread and dripping. Not wanting to give up yet I throw him
together @campbellclaret’s (Alistair Campbell) Easiest Snack “Two slices of toast in toaster. Open tin of beans. Cook beans on stove. Pour beans on toast when beanjuice is sizzling” Success – but then I knew he’d go for that.
I’m off to a meeting later, everyone’s expected to take goodies to
share. I study the generous selection of desserts. Some look delicious,
some incredibly simple @Tracytid’s Golden Biscuit Cake “Melt 125g butter, 3tbsp golden syrup, bash 200g biscuits, mix together, put in tray in fridge for a couple of hrs. Eat”
some as complicated as 140 characters will allow. @justinbrownchef of
Masterchef UK has one there for crème brûlée. @mduffywriter has one in
there for Chocolate Body Paint. You know what? You want those recipes,
buy the book and look them up yourselves. I went with @goodtoweet’s
Lemon Cake. I didn’t end up bringing any home again which is always a
good sign.
I spent a long time wondering what to make for dinner. There’s large
fish, poultry and meat sections. A section for pasta and rice dishes and
a decent vegetarian and vegan section. I’m overwhelmed by choice. All
look achievable and most look like everyone here would eat them. With
the exception of my own Spiced Lentils. Must’ve been having an
ambitiously healthy day the day I tweeted that one. I look at the mess
in my kitchen after the day’s culinary escapades and one recipe stands
out: @Glinner (Graham Linehan’s) beef recipe: “Step 1. Order take-out…”
Tweet Treats Compiled and Edited by Jane Travers. Published by The
O’Brien Press. ISBN 978-1-84717-302-7 Price €7.99/£6.99 Proceedds to
Medicins sans Frontieres. Available from Amazon.co.uk, Book Depository, Waterstones, Eason, Dubray Books, O’Brien Press and all good bookshops.
I
discovered this club during Heritage Week. The event was advertised as a
‘Wild Kids’ discovery tour of Turvey Park in Donabate. I called the
number and signed up my 6 year old, who loves nothing more than climbing
trees and getting muddy. I dropped him to the meeting point and watched
him wander off timidly with the other kids and ‘Mouse’ the leader. When
I collected him after the 2 hours he was flushed, wet, muddy, in
possession of a slingshot made from a twig and was talking at 100mph out
of excitement about jumping ditches and making shelters. I signed him
up for a year’s membership at a cost of €25.
We get regular emails inviting us to
events. The club has an allotment in St Anne’s Park where we are often
invited as a family to go and help plant, dig and grow vegetables. The
leaders there constantly point out interesting facts about insects,
gardening and other aspects of nature to the kids. The club is also
responsible for the maintenance of Ashtown Nature Reserve where we spent
a very pleasant Saturday afternoon foraging for fruits and berries. We
were given recipes to use the fruits we had gathered and the kids loved
helping to make and eat the jam produced from the damsons we collected
that day. There’s another few weeks to go before we (adults) can taste
the sloe gin we also made.
OWLS stands for outdoor, wildlife,
learning and survival. It is a registered children’s nature charity and
the aim of it is to offer young children experiences that get them in
tune with their natural world, while learning and having fun at the same
time. Events run once a fortnight at weekends at various parks and
natural areas both on the north and southside of Dublin. OWLS also
organise week long daycamps for children during the school holidays.
We are looking forward to the conker
championships next Sunday and the many scary events planned for the
weeks around Hallowe’en. OWLS Nature Club is perfect for those with
young families who would like to spend more time with them exploring the
great outdoors. Our children have thoroughly enjoyed every event we’ve
taken part in and the relaxed, inclusive nature of the events makes them
a lot of fun for the grownups too.
For more detailed information, a list of events and benefits of membership see http://www.owls.ie
Is there
anything that doesn't have its own occasion these days? Daffodil Day,
Arthur's Day, Heritage Week, Book Week, Culture Night even Fish 'n'
Chip day. Some of these are awareness raising, some are nothing more
than marketing ploys. They seem to work in that the public masses go
out of their way to focus on what they're supposed to at the
designated time. Overall, having a day/night/week to celebrate your
product or charity is good for business.
In 2005 I
had my first child. I sometimes attended a breastfeeding support
group with him run by my local public health nurse. Even though I had
no breastfeeding difficulties, it was nice to meet other women around
my own age, also flailing around trying to come to terms with who
they were now; trying to accept that their new lives revolved around
these whole other tiny people now permanently attached to their
breasts, each generating more laundry than a busy hotel and every
stranger on the street seemed determined to share their strong,
knowing but vastly differing opinions on how the child should be
treated. The group usually consisted of a bit of friendly chat,
comparison of developmental milestones, discussions on where to get
the best nursing bras and a teabag in a mug. If we were lucky we got
a biscuit. My public health nurse was of the 'watch the baby not the
scales' persuasion so although she would weigh a baby at a mother's
request, it wasn't often part of the morning. The first week in
October I turned up to find nice sandwiches, proper coffee and cake
all laid on for us by the HSE to celebrate National Breastfeeding
Week. What is the point of having a week, I wondered briefly, surely
you either breastfeed or you don't? There was some talk of the launch
of the Breastfeeding in Ireland 5 Year Strategic Action Plan
to increase rates of breastfeeding in Ireland. I shrugged, shifted my
baby to my other hip and helped myself to a chocolate eclair.
I moved
house soon after that and spent a great deal of time in my new area
trekking along to various coffee mornings, parent and toddler groups
and nursing toddler mornings. I knew no one in the area and figured
it was important to make friends, if not just for me, for my son.
Some of these I liked more than others. In some, where my older baby
was the only one still breastfed, the only one who had never slept
anywhere but my bed and the only one who wouldn't let a puréed
vegetable pass his lips, I felt pressured and judged. I frequented
the nursing toddler mornings more often than the others. I was far
more comfortable there.
In 2007 I
had my second son and the women in my local La Leche League group
were fabulous in supporting me through the ups and downs of
breastfeeding through pregnancy and tandem nursing beyond. Something
I hadn't even considered possible before. When he was three weeks old
we attended the launch of National Breastfeeding Week 2007 back in
the Rotunda where he was born.
By then I
saw the point of it. This year the focus of the week was Your Network
of Support, something I now realised was incredibly important even
for those who breastfed with no physical difficulty. It's hard to
stand up for yourself against the grain of what is seen as normal in
this country. Even when what you are doing intuitively feels right,
mothering your first child is always filled with questions and
doubts. Having people to talk to who don't give 'advice' who just
listen and act as a sounding board, gave me options and suggestions
and left the decision making up to me was empowering and helped me
become more confident in my mothering. It's also great to have
someone to call if there is pain or other complications. Someone who
will offer a breastfeeding solution to a breastfeeding problem
because there very often is one. Whatever support group suits you
best, they really are a great asset because unfortunately in our
society, being home alone with a baby or toddler is a very lonely
place to be.
This
year, National Breastfeeding Week runs from 1st- 7th
October. The theme is 'Breastfeeding Friendly' with a focus on
supporting breastfeeding families and encouraging greater acceptance
of this important and natural process. Many events, talks and coffee
mornings are happening around the country. Most of these are
organised by voluntary breastfeeding support groups such as Friends
of Breastfeeding, La Leche League and Ciudiú. Some of them are
available here http://www.friendsofbreastfeeding.ie/NBW2011.html
but keep an eye out locally too.
I'll be
at some of them handing out the coffee, cake and leaflets because as
far as I'm concerned, if only one new mother finds herself a name,
phone number or group to reach out to when she doubts her own
mothering skills, someone who will reassure her and not undermine
her; or if one pregnant woman decides to come along to see what its
all about and meets someone supportive, the whole week will have been
a success. I am also looking forward to the cake.
Leaving cert results are out, college places have been offered and accepted and once again the powers that be have expressed concern that Irish students aren't graduating with sufficient marks in mathematics to take up places on engineering and computer science courses. Minister Quinn has asked his Minister of State to look at the secondary system for ways to improve maths performance and the Higher Education Authority is meeting with the National Council for Curriculum Assesment to explore the issue of reform. All in all, the numerical skills of Irish teens are a big worry for the government who are gambling on our future knowledge based economy to pay off their gambling debts.
So why don't teens think they're good at maths? How numbers fit together is the only thing that has remained and will remain constant in education since the first abacus. Language and technology are always evolving, we learn more about geography and science everyday and history is constantly being added to but complex numbers or not, one and one will always make two. It should be instinctive at this stage in our evolution. I know the majority of teens have mastered the basic concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication and hopefully even long division by the time they graduate primary which theoretically should give them a good foundation to start playing with probability and calculus, transformations and quadratic equations but somewhere between fourth class percentages and Junior Cert algebra we seem to be losing them. Or - they're gaining such a negative opinion of maths, its complication and their own abilities in the subject that they drag their feet into class everyday, gaze out the window or doodle on their Text & Tests with an attitude of 'I can't do it, so why bother try?'
I feel sorry for anyone who misses out on the beauty of maths. In the insecure turmoil of puberty there was no feeling of elation quite like that of finding an elusive X and knowing it was perfectly correct because you could put it back into the equation and check. It was more satisfying to me to work out a simultaneous equation than to complete a cryptic crossword and probability was just games, like playing solitaire. Admittedly, I struggled a bit with differentiation and I absolutely despised learning off proofs of theorems but because I liked working out the missing angle, I could see the benefit in just knowing them. I got differentiation eventually because I knew I was good at maths and I wouldn't let it beat me.
So, I'll ask again - why don't teens think they're good at maths? Why are we losing them? I think I have an answer. My theory goes back to infant level maths. Most children don't start school till they are five or well over four. Before this, most have completed at least one year of preschool. In preschool and at home for the first few years they've learned most of the concepts on the junior infant syllabus. They may or may not have the language for it and probably don't have the ability to write it but most four year olds have taught themselves about shapes and basic counting. They know two is more than one and they know if you take one away they are left with one. They count things constantly for fun and they certainly know which part of the chocolate bar is bigger and which is smaller. Most have watched enough Cbeebies to identify the numerals to ten too. Forgive the cliche but young children are sponges and constants like numbers are perfect stimuli for their small but information gobbling brains. Which begs the question; why is the first two whole years of formal mathematics education spent on matching sets to ten and numeral recognition and reproduction? The reproduction admittedly takes some time to master but the development of motor skills shouldn't hold back the development of cognitive skills. I was stunned last year when my eldest started junior infants. On covering the book I realised that the last few pages introduced addition to five with the aid of pictures. My son had been adding and subtracting to twenty for a year already. I mentioned this to his teacher and the head and they both said they had no choice but to stick to the syllabus. We struggled through the year with us writing out pages of 'addies' (eg 7+4=____) as a reward for completing his colouring homework. Twice the teacher approached me about his inappropriate behaviour and lack of patience in class. Eventually she gave him some senior infant work to complete while waiting for the others to finish. He complained this was also too easy. Do I have a gifted child on my hands? Perhaps. Lately though, my younger child who is only embarking on his first full time year of preschool has been asking for 'homework'. He doesn't hold his pencil correctly, he hasn't even decided which hand he prefers but he can match and he can draw a circle and he identifies sets and numerals up to ten correctly every time. He has a year to go till he starts junior infants and then what? Back to matching sets of one and two. Have I two gifted children? Unlikely. I asked on Twitter did anyone have a similar experience. I got eight replies all agreeing with me that the syllabus is too basic/moves too slowly for many kids. One questioned my rush, saying yes his daughter found it easy in year one but that may change as she got older. More importantly no one disagreed. My concern is that in the first week of senior infants my son already complains 'maths is boring' yet will come home and demand his page of 'addies' and lately has been experimenting with simple multiplication. At some point in his school life the maths will get harder, proabably around fourth class with the introduction of long division. Will my sons still be listening in maths class at that stage? I doubt it. And this is where I think we're losing them.
I taught KG2 for two years and first grade for one in another country. The maths syllabus was very similar to here. There was another subject though. Twice a week, I was scheduled to teach Mental Maths. This was basic numerical agility. Addition, subtraction, filling in boxes, counting in multiples, learning tables, working it out with your fingers or in your head. I struggled to teach the methods and tricks of adding numbers larger than ten as I had to learn them myself. Rounding up - really? In all my years being 'good at maths' I had never learned to do it in my head. I was blessed with a good memory and to this day if you ask me to multiply two large numbers without a pen I will mentally work out the sum on an invisible piece of paper the way I was taught to doing long multiplication in third class. I never learned to round to ten, or break it down into factors until I had to teach the skills. Was I just not listening that day in school? So many of my Irish teacher colleagues struggled with the subject too that I think not.
I'm not a so called tiger mom, I'm not particularly pushy. Of course I want my children to do well and be successful in life but the reason I give my children academic work to do is usually to keep them quietly occupied. I get fed up playing with Lego and spaceships and I'm trying to limit their screen time. They enjoy it. If they didn't I'd find something else for them to do. I know the theories that academia is best left till they're older and formal education doesn't start till they are six in Denmark etc. but living within the constraints of Irish rainy Suburbia, a page of 'addies' or 'matching' is a good way to buy myself a few minutes quiet to make a phonecall. I enjoyed maths too - it's satisfying.
I am dreading heading into the next few years of struggling with my children to complete homework that bores them and the stress of making up extra work that challenges them. Already the four year old is eyeing up the six year old's maths book. It's not a good way for a parent to feel about their children's education and it's even worse that small children are feeling that way about their school work. He loves the school, he enjoys all the other subjects, he adores his teachers but he is unchallenged and bored by maths below his level and I think that needs to change before it turns to apathy. I believe if Minister Quinn really is determined to improve the numeracy skills of the next generation he should start by challenging the little ones. Make it fun from an early age. Teach them mental numeracy. Show them the pleasure and satisfaction maths can give. Start them off with the idea that maths is something they can enjoy and succeed at and keep them interested and I believe they're far more likely to believe in their own ability to sit that higher level paper and pass it.
A couple of weeks before Easter, I noticed this robin hanging around our garden acting a bit suspiciously. Every time I came out she froze and eyed me, usually with a bit of moss or hair in her beak. After a few days I figured out where she was building the nest. Beside our back patio door there is a water butt, on top of this the resident gardener had left two full bags of compost and an almost empty one that was split down the side. The robin was building her nest inside the top compost bag. At first I begged of Twitter what should I do? This wasn't as clever a place for a nest as the robin seemed to think. What about our garden hose and our trowel? Then I stole a peek. She'd obviously worked really hard to build such a spectacular structure. I hadn't the heart to move her on. I negotiated the loan of the gardening equipment to the robins for as long as they needed it and we did our best to leave them to it. After about a week, I noticed the male bringing food to the female robin. In the evening time he came to her and they both flew out together for about an hour. We slyly stole a pic to see what was going on. Four eggs! A couple of days later - a fifth was also there. Then everything went very quiet. The female spent all day in the nest for about another ten days, only leaving for a bath and a bite in the evening. The male came and went a bit with worms for her. It was intersting that they never flew directly in our out of the nest. They always perched on a tree on the opposite side of the garden, or the back of a patio chair first. Then they would duck in and out when they were sure nobody or other birds saw them.
One evening I thought I heard a tiny chirp from the nest. it was hard to tell though, there were loud nesting martins and sparrows all around in the eaves of the houses but the next day both robins were very busy coming and going with bits of worms and taking out bits of shell. We were desperate to look but didn't want to disturb them. Then the big wind came. The top of the bag, or 'the roof' kept blowing up, the entire bag looked at risk of flying away. I pulled over the patio table and taped a refuse sack between the parasol and the table to create a type of windshield. The robins watched me closely and seemed to figure out that I was creating shelter even if they thought it was accidental. They were still flapping about worried though, the bag was still looking precarious. George came home, saw my construction which was blocking the backdoor and grabbed a few tentpegs. He stuck them through the corners of the bag into the one beneath. While he was doing that he managed to stick his phone in and get this:
Four baby robins!
After that, other than the parents flying in and out with food and debris, everything was quiet. Robin chicks are surprisingly unchirpy. Up above in the eaves, the young martins were busy being schooled in flight. making ever increasing circles in and out of their nest. Then two days went by and I saw no robins at all. I grew concerned. On the third or fourth day we looked - they were gone. All of them. All that was left was the one unhatched little egg at the bottom of the nest. I was worried that a cat or bigger bird had gotten to them but the nest and bag were undisturbed and there was nothing on the ground around it. A quick Google informed me that robins are ready to fly and fend for themselves as soon as they outgrow the nest. Mom and dad simply entice them out with some worms usually in the morningtime. My nestlings had obviously flown. I was sorry I missed it. The six year old and I printed out these pictures and he wrote a couple of sentences about each. We pasted them onto a board and he brought it and the empty nest into school. He was very happy to be the centre of attention with his little project and the resident gardener was happy to get his tools back.
My heart thumped with excitement as I carefully applied black eyeliner and powdered my already white face whiter. It was November 1991, I was 15 and I was finally allowed to go to a major concert unchaperoned. The band was The Cult, I knew a few of their songs, I had dated a guy for a whole seven weeks that was mad about them and I liked their sound. I was going with a girl who these days might be known as a 'frenemy' but that didn't matter. She was a big fan and was so glad to have someone to come with her that she was being completely nice to me that day.
We got there early and made our way through the sea of black clothes and hair right up the front to the barrier. The support band came on; Bootsauce. They were good, sounded a bit like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We danced a bit and cheered as the excitement levels rose. There was a break after them when we considered trying to buy a beer but we didn't want to risk getting thrown out for being underage nor did we want to lose our spot. So we waited as the tension built until the cheers, chants and screams reached a crescendo and this happened:
In 1991, Ian Astbury was already 30, twice my age and well older than anyone I'd consider dating; but whatever it was about his 'Don't Touch Me, I AM The Cult' stage presence, the flick of his hair, the pelvic thrust of his leather trousers, the 'Hey Baby!' with a click of the fingers attitude and the distintive raw crooning voice I was; for the first time in my life, completely, totally and utterly starstruck. There followed a good hour of pumping, rocking tunes. I sang along when I knew the lyrics. I made them up when I didn't. I danced, I sweated, I screamed like only a teenage girl at a concert can. When Ian and Billy pulled up chairs and performed an acoustic version of Edie, Ciao baby, I even cried. Whatever happened that night, that concert made a huge impression on me. He became my definition of the perfect man.
I ran out the next day and bought Sonic Temple and Ceremony, I taped the frenemy's Electric and Edie EP. The The Cult became a staple in the soundtrack to the rest of my teens. The upbeat, happy, good times playlist. The man with whom I later fell most deeply, self-sacrificingly in love wore the same leather trousers, had the same mane of hair and a similar attitude. Turns out he had been at that concert too. He had a Billy plectrum the roadie had given him after. I coveted it.
When I moved to Qatar in 2000, Pure Cult was one of the first CDs I bought to restart my collection. Many an evening was spent dancing around my apartment in the desert to Rain. When I felt homesick, Edie was still one of the ballads I turned to.
Life went on. I moved home, fell in love with a different style of man and had kids. My vinyl got left in an attic somewhere and the Pure Cult CD mostly got left on the rack. She Sells Sanctuary was regularly played on the radio but I didn't think much about them for years. I heard Ian Astbury was touring with The Doors but the night they played Dublin, I didn't bother going. Once, my husband played a request for me on Phantom FM and asked for 'anything by The Cult that's not She Sells Sanctuary' They played 'Lil Devil'. I danced in my seat all the way home much to the bemusement of my kids.
A year later, I hear they are playing. A mix up meant I thought I won tickets but had misheard. Then, they were sold out. I was beyond disappointed. My husband bought tickets to a gig and refused to tell me what it was. Soon after I heard The Cult had added an extra date. I suspected they might be my surprise tickets but I wasn't sure. He made me sweat it out. The night he gave in and showed me the tickets I was ecstatic. Pure Cult was put on loudly and I listened to it through twice. For the next few weeks I looked up everything they had done since 2001. I made Everyman and Everywoman is a Star my ringtone. My kids can now sing along with Rain in the car.
The morning of the gig, I woke excited. After the schoolrun I spent an hour choosing what to wear. I've seen so many gigs in the interim but this was the first one that had me jumping up and down all day long. I knew in my head that he must have aged and was overweight now but I figured he was still Ian Astbury; he was still The Cult; he still had The Voice and would still own the stage. We got there just as the support act was finishing up. This time I had no problem getting served. This time the sea of black was a touch faded and the manes of hair were a touch receded. I bumped into someone I hadn't seen in about 15 years and had fun catching up.
They came on. Despite being prepared for the worst, I was a bit shocked. He was wearing a pair of knee length jersey shorts with long socks and Converse. He looked like he'd just staggered out of bed. They played Rain. The band were great. The same sound, the same energy. The rest of them looked great. They played Every man and Electric. By this stage I was giving it socks. In my mind, I was back in the 90s and if I closed my eyes or watched the musicians I could almost believe it. The rest of the audience weren't dancing so much. There was lots of head nodding and foot tapping but no real rocking. Ian explained his 'dressing like an oompa loompa' was so his balls didn't get too hot. Lovely, Ian - dead sexy, baby. How many years did you prance around in leathers, hot rocks or not? Then they played Sweet Soul Sister and Ian appeared to get a bit annoyed at the sound or the audience or life or something. He shouted the melodious chorus out so it was practically unrecognisable. He gave the audience a lecture about recording the show on phones and missing the moment. He created an atmosphere that wasn't so much one of a moody, arrogant rockstar but that of a grumpy oul' fecker. The band continued to rock. Ian missed half the words to most of the songs. Instead of dancing through the solos he stood in a corner and deep breathed. His short movie about Native Americans completely lost the audience. Edie has been replaced on the setlist by Embers, which he seems to find emotional but it has nowhere near the power of Edie. He insisted on starting Wildflower from the top when Billy broke a string and managed to miss the verse again. He stopped before the breakdown in Love Removal machine and gave another irrelevant lecture ruining the flow of the song. He didn't even manage to get the lyrics right to She Sells Sanctuary. All in all he gave a performance of the likes I've only read about in the latter part of Jim Morrisson biographies. Did the role go to his head, perhaps? For the encore they played a pretty rockin' version of Fire Woman which went down well, then he disappeared back into Jim Morrisson mode for Break On Through which it seems he carried off better the previous night.
This was The End. I had enjoyed the band and the music. I had danced my ass off. My neck still hurts from headbanging. I even got my own Billy plectrum. My husband bought me a Destroy Europa hoodie which I've barely taken off since. All in all, I had a great time. But I was left feeling let down, betrayed and disappointed. Ian Astbury had come crashing down off the pedestal in my head with a heavy thud. He's lost his confidence; he's lost his attitude and developed a metaphorical hump unbecoming of a rock idol. Now it seems he'd be more at home on a sofa with his hand down his shorts and a discarded pizza box nearby than pumping and grinding on a stage. He made me glad my teenage fantasies of being whisked away on a tour bus never came true. I wasn't even tempted when he invited the audience to meet him later in Temple Bar. For the second time after a Cult gig, I got the last bus home. I played all the songs he'd missed the lyrics to and danced to them again in my own living room. I relived my teenage experience at home and I was satisfied. I had closure.
And so it goes. Another teenage illusion dashed. Another road not taken revealed to have been potentially lethal. The question remains: would I go see them again? The answer is: of course! - He was my first idol, my first crush, my first close up experience with a rockstar in leather pants, I will always give him another chance to rock my world.
So I'm doing the Flora mini-marathon. For those who know me this will probably be a surprise. I am not a sporty person. I've been training for a few weeks though and reckon I'll be able to manage it. I chose to do it for Jack & Jill Children's Foundation.
You've probably all seen the mobile phone envelopes but few know what services they provide. I met a nurse who works for this charity at a coffee morning fundraiser last year. She told me of some of her cases. A 2 year old boy who sufferred brain damage in surgery soon after birth. This child needs to be held close 24/7 or he gets very distressed. Jack and Jill provide a nurse to assist with this care so that his parents can spend some time with their two other children or simply take a break. She also told me of families who have been forced to leave work to care for their children full time. Here they provide financial or practical assistance such as children's books and toys. Another vitally important service they offer is advice on how best to care for a seriously ill child at home and how to access services. It's scary enough being home with your first child but imagine that child was seriously ill. Where would you turn? Jack and Jill provide home visits and offer advice and practical help. They are always mindful of the loneliness and isolation that affected families experience and provide support to help these families cope and to promote the best quality of life for all concerned. The charity also puts much effort into campaigning and lobbying government to improve services to these children who come from all backgrounds.
Jack and Jill also recycle mobile phones and printer ink cartridges to raise funds - or you can Text PINT to 57034 (Ireland only) to donate the price of a pint.
I hooked up with an old friend on Facebook and he mentioned he still had this poem I wrote as a tortured teen. I had long forgotten it but rereading it now bearing in mind I was 16 and knew nothing of the Internet I'm kind of proud of it. Thanks Ian for keeping it and sending me the text. Let me know what you think.
14.01.1993
The Web
It's a web of happiness entwined with gloom,
A web of hope entangled with doom,
A web of limbo mixed with paradise,
A web of a smile topped with sad eyes,
A web of people joined at the heart
But the fears of being hurt keep them apart
Confusion's the spider,we're all just flies
Caught in the web of love in disguise.
The threads are the ecstasy, the dewdrops the tears;
The pattern is hope, the gaps are just fears.
So many hearts mingled together
In a web so strong, yet light as a feather.
So many stories rolled into one
And nobody knows what's to be done.
For when you break free, think you've come to a conclusion
You find you're still caught in a web of delusion.
And when you think you're happy, settled at last,
What's around the next corner
But the webs of your past.
Been craving cheesecake for weeks but been trying to lay off sugar and white flour. Today I concocted this from about 6 different recipes and it worked! Base is crunchy and filling is surprisingly sweet for so little sugar.
Base:
1 cup oats
1 cup wholegrain spelt (from health shop)
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter
1 tbs sugar
Mix all together, press into greased pie tin and bake at 160C for 8-10 mins till it turns golden Leave to cool.
Filling
500g of light cream cheese
1 cup of light sour cream
1/2 cup milk
2 tbs castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 package gelatine
1/2 cup boiling water
Disolve gelatine in water. Place rest of ingredients into a bowl and whisk until peaks form. Stir in gelatine solution. Pour filling into cooled base. Refrigerate for 2-3 hrs till set. Decorate with summer fruits.
Tweet
Treats is a recipe book that was conceived on Twitter. All the recipes
in Tweet Treats are in under 140 characters or less as submitted to
compiler and editor Jane Travers over the medium of Twitter. There are
over 1000 recipes in all. 140 of those were submitted by celebrities
ranging in talent and glamour from Keith Barry to Paula Abdul, Neil
Gaiman to Ryan Tubridy. The rest came from your average tweeps including
a couple from little old me! It contains a foreward and some great
cooking tips from Marco Pierre White. All the royalties of the book go
the deserving charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.
