Thursday 1 October 2015

BACK TO THE BARRE & A GREAT FIND!

It's alright for me as I see her all the time but there are some of you who know her, who won't know her or recognise her soon. For she's on that merry losing streak and now, Dear Readers, she's going to sign up to join a bunch of creaky friends to take ballet classes again!

"Bending and stretching, my dear, will keep you strong", was said by Waveney Provatoroff,a great friend of Constance. Waveney was older than her mother and what stories, all true my dears* she told! Waveney and Constance walked their dogs across the marshes at Sandwich and she always said that being with Waveney was the BEST fun.

*Kenneth Carten was her brother and was a theatrical agent, whose clients, besides others,  included.. Laurence Olivier and Noel Coward!

So the stories were truly amazingamazing! And the combination of the family's much beloved friends, Judy and Richard Calidicott, with Waveney and Vladimir, her husband who had been an SOE Agent during WW2, was memorable!

So it is backwards in time she zooms.. for it is fifty, yes fifty, years this year that she last took a ballet class! Plies should be done by everyone every day.. and this is why.

For the proceedure of bending both your knees at the same time with your feet in several different positions uses and strengthens your thigh muscles - and others - and, as you get older, if these muscles are not strong, you'll have dificulties getting up out of a chair, the bath and walking properly.

Other vital muscles are your tumtum ones! So pull and hold your stomach in, keep it in and your back will thank you. Your core muscles are vital. Think about it and suck your gut in and up!

GRIM start to a glorious day, for her, not me! For today is the first day for many years that she's not had her much beloved Vellutto Nero coffee. She's giving nice Tim's recommendation of not drinking coffee a six months trial to see if her digestive system appreciates the lack of coffee.. are you up here with us or still lolling about working that out?

But green tea is not going to take the place of coffee, of this you can be sure, it's the smell my dears.. ugh. Today our old favourite Lapsang was drunk but, whereas, we love that as our reallyreally first cup of anything drunk in bed tea, it didn't taste quite right with her grapefruit and boiled egg.

Ahha.. she's had a eureeka moment! Kefir will do the trick! Now let's hope Debbie Goaty mum remembers her request for some Kefir grains and brings them up this Saturday. If she's going to overhaul her eating and drinking, she might as well go the whole hog and change lots of things.

Going to Baldwins is always fun because she can and does slip across to the extremely well stocked Asian supermarket.. slurp.. a new variety of Kimchi made of radish leaves was beyond wonderful last night and the new very fine stainless stell steamer ball is brilliant.

Taking a fat fresh chicken breast, she sliced some slices off the end, put a couple of homemade frozen chicken stock cubes into boiling water water with dried tarragon and fresh lemon peel - the steamer ball is about four inches in height and width - and having laid the chicken strips into the bottom section and reduced the stock to a rolling simmer, she screwed on the lid and lowered the steamer into the stock.

Where, in less than a minute, it poached and all she had to do was lift the steamer out. The meat, which was perfectly cooked, drained immediately! How clever is this little gadget? For it means you can cook anything for however long you like and then whip it out and it drains itself.. no more putting through a sieve to drain anything! It will be fabulous for vegetables.

Time for us to start our day.. the sun is 'ris and shining happily on this first day of October.. Autumn is here, well, it got here is September but we think it is October that is the best month of all. The colours are stupendous and the weather, usually, perfect. So off we go..

GeeGee Parrot.
October 1st, 2015.

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