10 ORANGES FOR £1! LUCKILY, THERE WERE GRAPES & COX'ES APPLES IN THE MARKET AS WELL.

Ugh.. she hates not having her early morning slurp of something hot and tasty but it had to be done. What also had to be done was cancelling her hair appointment with L'Oreal as they won't do colour work on a scalp that has hives all over it, that's for sure.

She washed, fed me, looked outside and dressed accordingly. Our Leap Day was bright and clear with a nip in the air. Then she headed for L'Oreal to change her appointment, they took one look and said "you're right, we wouldn't have been able to do any work on you, will March 23rd be ok for you at 1.30 pm? Then on to Charing Cross Hospital for blood tests, which was why she was 'nil by mouth'.

Having done that, she drank a coffee in one of the hospital's cares and pottered off up Dawes Road to the Pet Shop for perch scratchers for me. Then up into the North End Road for fruit. WHAT! Ten fat pregnant oranges for a quid! Grrr. Well, it's a good thing they weren't that price last week or she been in an even bigger mess!

Yes, she's still breaking out in hives, they're boring and itchy-scratchy making to say the least! Last night she should have taken something to deal with the pain but didn't, very silly, so she spent a truly horrid night trying not to scratch her neck and head.

Red seedless grapes and cox'es apples have taken the place of oranges, it being a Monday, she walked up to weigh-in which she would missed if she'd had her hair done. Behind her walked in Pat, who said said "goodness me, what's happened, have you had some form of food poisoning?", our clever, dear Pat did not run those rwo GP surgeries for twenty five years for nothing!

"An allergic reaction to citrus, so yes, I was poisoned, I'm covered in hives, have this filthy cold and feel dreadful with a gruesome headache", Pat nodded and replied "yes, you will do, drink lots and lots of water, eat apples and yogurt and use calamine lotion to ease the itch in those hives, they'll only go when the oranges are completely out of your system, so take some herbal senna tea tonight to wash it out of your digestive tract for a couple of nights and a pain killer so that you can sleep".

Itch Itch.. Scratch Scratch.. which, of course, she doesn't do!

GeeGee Parrot.
February 29th, 2016.
PostScript: She's lost 1lb and is back to 139 lbs.. aka 9stone 13lbs.

ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

Off she went like Nellie the Elephant.. she didn't do 'Trump Trump Trump' and she wasn't heading for Mandalay but with all the layers of clothing that she was wearing, she did look a trifle large, to put it politely.

She took the naughty citrus people out of the fruit baskets, oranges, tangerines and clementines, if you were orange and round, you went into a bag and plopped into WW. Along with the rosemary she'd picked yesterday for Alice and Vivienne, two goaty folk. Alice, because she was pregant with twins, and was reported to be feeling not very happy and Vivinne.. just becos.

She's just had a horrid hought.. gulp.. if she's thrown up this reaction, what about grapefruit? Oh, now that would be grimsville itself, for she loves pink and white grapefruit.

Slightly preoccupied with various thoughts, she kissed me and checked my yumyum and water dishes before leaving the house late. Upon getting off at Selfridges, she wiggled her way through into Manchester Square and onto Marylebone High Street to get some money for the dumplings and.. remembered that the chocolate salami never plopped into WW, they were still lying on the work surface in YumYum HQ.. drat.

Certainly she did not look out of place! For the stall holders had the identical layers of clothing on, she greeted Debbie with the bag of citrus folk and the bag of rosemary for Alice and Vivienne. At which Debbie grimaced and explained that poor sweet Alice didn't make it, she has died and along with her, her unborn twins.

OI VEY..

She got them their dumplings, apologised for lack of chocolate salami but has decided that she will take them to Joe at Borough during the week in the knowledge that Joe will actually deliver them.. intact.. to the farm with no nibble marks on either end. Unlike some folk whose names we won't mention.

Then it was time to go, she feels thick headed, her nose is dripping (charming side effect of the allergy plus a cough which developed two days ago), it is freezing cold out there, she wore the same boots but right foot was a bit 'widgy' underneath today, bah-humbug, to it all.

She took an anti-histamine pill this morning as prescribed by her GP but last night hives are of the extra vicious variety. Ugh, they're big and red and exceedingly angry, the ones on her shoulder bones and the one in her right armpit being the worst. HOW she longs to give them a good scratch but she won't.

Upon arriving home, she changed the quilt on her bed, this and the towel will be washed, then vacuumed the floor for any traces of orange peel and pulled a new dark blue blanket up over the quilt.. "Oh goodie.. tangerine time", I thought but she had to explain that there aren't any in the house and that I have to get fond of something else, like what, I thought, spiny-apple, grapes again?

Ah well, she'll find something tasty for our bedtime snack-et, for one can't go to bed with nothing in tumtum, can we? But there's nothing else in the house, apart from bird food, now, admittedly it is most superior bird food with all sorts of deliciously slurpy things in it but I, and she, both want something wet and sweet, she should have bought a bag of Edwins' most excellent apples but did not think.. a woolly head will do that to you.

Blood test tomorrow which she will do as soon as they open.. for she has to be NIL BY MOUTH after midnight.. well, at least we know what the 'bites' are caused by, don't we.. pity that.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 28th, 2016.

IT'S THE CLEMENTINEENIES!

OH.. NO! But I am very afraid that it's a case of.. OH.. YES!

She settled down with an ample supply of those small bright orange folk for us both last night.. the ratio was two for her and one for me. I fluttered down as soon as I saw what was on offer and a towel being spread over her lap.

She peeled them and, very sweetly, she gave me the first segment and peeled several for me so that I would be able to satisfy my lust for this tootie-frootie. She then had a whole fruit to herself. We ate in happy silence, both of us enjoying the juice and the taste.

Then they were all finished and having wiped old Beaky on her hand, I flew back to bedroom pole to cogitate my not-so-bare tumtum. She went to put in her eye drops and do her teeth and came back to bed.

A few minutes later, I heard "ouch, what the dudu was that" and looking down from pole, I saw her reaching for the bottle of lavender essential oul. She dabbed some on a finger and put it onto her shoulder bone.

"GeeGee, I have got bites on my shoulder bone and in my armpit and they are reallyreally evil these ones" she said as she sprayed herself with her virus and germ killing concoction which she calls The Deadly Five.

We went to bed, me in peace with a bowl of snacky things just in case I awoke with a gaping hole in tumtum or a raging thirst, she in an extremely unpeaceful fashion, trying desperately not to scratch herself like a dememted child with BIG bites all along both shoulder bones, under her right arm in the fleshy bit and one on her neck.

And when she awoke, it hit her.. "OH, Gordon Bennett, it's the clementines that's causing the bites, it's an allergic reaction".. she reached for iPad and looked up 'reaction to tangerines and clementines' and there, Dear Readers, were exactly the symptoms she's been getting. 'Bites' which, of course, are not bites but the allergic reaction to the citrus fruits, they're HIVES and she has this nasal drip, nice.

So no more small clementeeny folk.. which is a great sadness as I love them but she is now 'off citrus' fruit and certainly not about to test to see if she could eat an orange instead, besides, I don't like oranges!

She's off to Marylebone Farmer's Market to meet up with Debhie, they'll eat non rash making Malaysian Dumplings with chilli and chocolate salami, so it is "goodbye" from us until she gets back.

Salami, rosemary for goaty folks, but first she has to wash and climb into all that cold weather gear.. it's a Frosty Tiger morning, yes, even though it's now midday, it's still cold.. brrr.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 28th, 2016.

IN THE DEPTHS OF BITTER WINTER, THERE ARE DELICIOUS THINGS TO BE FOUND..

You'll find something to gladden your eye and chirp up a plate. I told her that it was chilly out there, I truly did but do you think she'd listen? Nope, not a hope in hades. So I let her go.. as if I could stop her.. down to the allotments.

It was 4 degrees.. gulp.. but she was dressed for extreme weather, she had on, over her bra and pants: a double camisole, a thermal long sleved vest, that thick merino sweater, thick cotton tights, proper gaberdine trousers + the waterproof pull-ons, a cotton scarf over her head, a wax jacket with its' furry lining, a Beanie and leather gloves.

On her feet were fleecy lined boots with another thicker fleecy sole in the right boot, this had the action of cushioning her right foot and there so was no pain. Can she have lost a fatty pad underneath her right foot, is this what is causing the problem in normal shoes?

Off she waddled.. everything worked quickly, she got a bus, then a tube, then another bus and got to the allotments before 1pm. Chatted with another plot holder then walked up the path to her plots.. and surprise surprise, they didn't look half as awful as she had expected them to.

But somebody (a tosser & every other rude word you can think of) has dug up and stolen the entire contents of her big potato bed! Ah, not a lot she can do, but she does hope they choked on them.. grrr. However, the garlic, planted last October, are all safe and growing happily.

And there were some glorious surprises. The dark blue hyacinths, that originally were indoor bulbs, are all up and starting to grow! Oh, they are beautiful and have the most glorious perfume. The tulip leaves are all up, "steady girls, not so quickly, it's still only Feb and you aren't due to flower until June", she said.

There is a new flower in flower that we have never had at the allotments! A patch of yellow crocus are in colour amongst the snowdrops! How did they get there? The first early daffodils are just flowering but the ones underneath the fruit rees are still fast asleep with not a bud in sight!

One patch of grape hycacinths, the originals given to her nine years ago by Lesley aka LuLu, are in flower and lots and lots of narcissi leaves are up but the flowers, no, they've got their heads tucked away saying "it's far too cold and windy, we'll see you when we come out in March or April", which, I might remind you all, are the proper months for them to be in flower! Likewise with one of Marinas' gifts, scented narcissus bulbs from the Scilly Isles.

And there was YumYum surprises too! Self seeded mizuna on the terrace, which had been nibbled by hungry pigeons but she didn't begrudge them that at all, in fact, it has acted as a form of pruning as there were new little shoots further back down along the stems!

Tasty stuff mizuna, spicy hot! And lots of chives! And winter rocket, she forgot to look for any rhubarb but will check her two plants next week, for she is intent on making panna cotta with fresh homegrown rhubarb.. slurp.

She fired up the grass trimmer, "nah", it said as it didn't want to 'play', so she cursed it and put it away and did digging instead but before she left, she tried it once more and this time the engine fired and caught, it needs more 2 stroke oil and petrol but she was able to do quite a bit, which made the plots look a lot tidier!

There are a lot of planks needed, she can't dig around the fruit bushes because of their root systems, so raised beds fitted between them will give her lots of planting space without interfering with the bushes. They will be two plank high beds filled with compost, manure and a load of top soil. And they'll be really easy to manage and put to bed etc!

But, oh, her ears and whiskers, it was chillybilly, she was covered from top to toe in proper chilly busting clothes but breathing out, well, her breathe was white and her nose was bright pink, as she saw when she got home.

But everything was ok, the most important thing being Little Shed. Apart from the stolen potatoes.. grrr.. everything else was fine, she picked rosemary to send to Alice, a goaty who is pregnant and feeling poorly and to Vivienne another goaty and a big bunch of daffodils for us which look very pretty and extremely chirpful in an old coffee pot in the bathroom.

She'll go next week on the days when she's not busy, she's got to hand weed that asparagus bed but a row at a time or even half a row a day and it will soon be done.

Saving up for those planks of wood is our next thing and several sheets of heavy duty black plastic with which you wrap the bottom edge and the inside of the planks. This stops the wood rotting, you certainly don't use 'treated' wood for raised beds! Ugh!

She has to remember to take a note book and a curtain measure down to the allotments. Why not a steel measuring tape? Well, curtain measures unfold, they don't spring about and bounce back at you and they're in increments of one foot lengths, very useful things are curtain measures! She has to mark out were she wants the raised beds with bamboo sticks.

Lots to do. I bet you're wondering why she doesn't get on and finish doing our home? She can't, until Wizard puts those shelves up, then everything will go away into the secret cupboard and we'll have our sitting room back again.

But until then, it is time to do gardening, it will get her exercised, full of fresh air, out into 'day'light.. joke.. and before we know it, it will be time for planting out the stuff that she'll start off at home, like beans, peas and courgettes etc.

And soon it will be tree and rose bush pruning time and then whoosh, we'll be into Summer! See what picking just one bunch of our own grown daffodil does to our mood plus bits of mizuna, rocket, chives and a few tiny leaves of sorrel, ahh, one of her favourites. Very chirpful making, finding that!

GeeGee Parrot.
February 27th, 2016.

On seeing her GP..

Who was horrified by her rash! The latest 'bite' of which appeared whilst she was in the surgery.. "oh dear, what can it be, well, we certainly need a full blood test that's for sure but it has to be a fasting one, go to the hospital first thing on Monday and then go for the foot xray at the same time, here's a prescription for the rash, it is an anti-histamine which will take the 'itch' out of those bites, and please bring in the box of the latest eye medicine from Moorfields, I'll see you on March 7th when we will go through all the test results".

Oh.. Thank God for her lovely NHS Surgery.. this was the first time she had seen this senior GP who heads it and now knows why it is so efficiently run, the woman was detailed, very thorough and kind.

Foot X-ray? I can hear you say. Yes, something most peculiar has happened to the underneath of her right foot.. aka her digging foot, she has a nasty feeling that it may be from wearing unstructured shoes and boots, the doctor thinks she might have chipped a tiny bone or pulled a tendon, it is 'quite painful' when she bends her foot as you do when you take a step in a proper shoe, instead of shuffling along in soft boots with rubber soles.

So she will go, on an empty stomach, on Monday to our nearest hospital to do these blood tests and for them to do the foot xray.. it is actually quite sore but the strange thing she remembers when she noticed it, about five days ago she was walking along Pont Street minding her own business (for a change) and suddenly 'OUCH.. what was that?' as the pain bit the right hand underneath side of her foot.

We did tell you getting older is not for sissies.. she refuses to give sissies a capital S!

Bright and cold here today.. but at least she had the sense to grab a Beanie and a cotton scarf for her neck before she went out, she forgot her gloves but at least your hands can go into a pocket. A Beanie on your head makes this cold frosty weather bearable, what did she do before kind Pat knitted her these delectable things?

She is extremely sad to report loss of original Beanie, she would never have taken him off outside, yes, Beanie is certainly a him, so how can he have been lost but he is nowhere to be seen, which is very peculiar indeed. She told Pat last Monday and Pat has said that she may have enough wool to knit her another, we do hope so, for Green Beanie was such a pretty colour.

She shot out of the house this morning for her doctor's appointment at 09.20am but at least I had my egg before she went, now she is tapping iPad before she goes to collect the anti-itch cream, I've just had a crisp and crunchy frootie-tootie dried slice and NOW I know why other birds sing, whistle and chat away! For  they're all as high as Kites on sugar!

For I'm being very vocal and chatty and going through my full repertoire up here on bedroom pole.. she's laughing at what I am telling her and occasionally checking if it really IS the landline telephone making that ting-a-lng sound or whether it's naughty old Beaky!

She's filled in the questionaire about her eating habits, that was easy as she has those detailed lists of what she's eaten going back several months, with nice GP Katherine on her case and the blood tests results being taken on Monday, I am sure that all will be well and she'll soon be back to her non-scratchy, non-limpy footed self.

PipPip.. now.. what would I like to eat, a morsel of that dried Papaya, Spiny-Apple or even a crisp slice of Banana? Oh, I am so mortified that I have thrown these delicious yummy things away in the past, I had better eat lots to make up for being so silly.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 26th, 2016.

Cold as a Witches tit.. brrr.

Frosty Tigers! Blimey, I knew she wasn't exactly 'with it' this morning but to go out on one of the coldest days without a Beanie.. it confirmed that all is not well in her woodshed, that's for sure.

The lecture was interesting, not exactly as Gillian had described it but good enough. Pauline arrived a bit late but she had growled at another poor woman who had had eyes on the seat she'd taken for her, so she slipped into the seat and caught most of it.

They then went afterwards almost next door to have a coffee, delicious coffee, nice place with lovely looking food but not with crazy prices.. on the Kings' Road in Chelsea! A great find.

She has to see her GP next week for an appointment to tell them about Moorfields, the change of medication, to lodge the new prescription and another couple of things. I tell you, Dear Readers, growing old ain't for sissies.

Shock horror, she's realised that it's nearly the end of February and this means that it is four months since she did any significant work at the allotments. Ugh, so she's going to haul herself down there and start working them again. Most years she has worked them all the year round but this last Winter has just been either too wet or too bloody cold but now work has to be done.

 She could do with some Goaty folk to eat clippings and couch grass weeds.. a few hungry goats could and certainly would, help a great deal!

Well, that's enough about her. I have something extremely funny, peculiar and ha-ha against myself, to report to you.

For over eleven years now, I have scorned the tootie-frootie bird mix that she has generously offered me occasionally, several kilos of dried banana slices plus chunks of various other exotic dried fruits have, I am very ashamed to say as I deliberately tipped the bowls over, ended up on the floor.

Today, she gave me a bowl of these before she went out to the lecture, to my amazement the contents of the bowl A. smelt very appetizing! B. looked delicious! (Did I grow-up over night?) And C. I found myself shinning up a lampshade frame with a large chunk of dried banana or plantain (?) in Beaky.

And, oh my goodness me! How tasty.. how crunchy.. indeed, how very slurpy! And to think I've scorned these lovely things all these years, how daft is that? So that's where I am now, up on the bedroom pole nibbling a morsel of dried papaya, as you do when you've got a kind mother who has been trying to get you to eat different yumyum for, indeed, many a year.

This, plus a couple of segments of clementeeny, makes my evening repast complete, we had fish for supper, a piece of wild salmon that she had bought at the end of December and frozen. It was tasty, cooked on a metal plate, no oil, just with seasonings, perfect.

She got a new library book to read. It is called 'Three Houses, Many Lives' by Gillian Tindall. We will tell you about it tomorrow.. in the meantime, stay happy, safe and warm.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 25th, 2016.

MOORFIELDS EYE CLINIC.. WHERE THEY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE EFFICIENT OR KINDER.. BUT THE RESULT WASN'T GREAT.

We ate a 'decent' breakfast, she knew she was in for a long day at the Glaucoma clinic and she left here early to be there before her appointed time of 14.00. She checked in at the clinics reception at 1.10 and was called at 1.25!

LOTS of tests with two nurses, then a couple of very weird drops that sort of 'froze' her movements for a minute or two whilst a nurse put a camera lens right up against her eyeballs.

Then off to the consultant.. who talked her through what results they had so far, then another set of drops.. "no blinking please", which of course makes your eyes want to blink immediately.. that examination was quite lengthy, then she was given another set of drops and asked to wait outside for 15 minutes.

Back in again for another test and the prognosis.. oh dear, no great.. there is now significant damage to the optic nerve in her right eye, the pressure is back up again, a stronger drug was prescribed and the consultant made an appointment which is now in place to monitor her.. every two months AND she was given an apology about the complete cock-up made by the numpty-idiots.

Well.. she gulped.. and the two nice women said "we're sorry the news isn't better", she thanked them both for being kind and taking her new prescription, followed the yellow line to the pharmacy for her new drops.

Hey-ho.. fiddle-dee-dee. Quelle bummer. No point in getting upset, life isn't always a bowl of dark red cherries, is it? She has them taking care of her now, she has her much beloved Margaret, her nice optician who is on her case checking her prescription regularly, she has you guys who know who you are and who are very sweet and chirp at her to chirp her up and she has me.

She came home via Chinatown, went and bought Tigers Balm as recommended by Michele and a large bag of  Chinese Greens, not unlike sprouting brocolli but with much bigger leaves.

Upon arriving back, she cuddled me and told me what had transpired, then we went to YumYum HQ. She booked a small pot of fusilli with a big handful of the greens and I finished my mornings' egg with some of the crunchy greens.

After the clear skies which there were all day, it's cold here tonight, there will be a hard frost, that's for sure. She's tired and is already in bed with a heat pad on her tummy. It isn't time for my fruitie tootie clementine so I'm playing about on bedroom pole but will descend at a sensible hour to eat this citrusy person.

What else did she do today? Well, she posted that card to Ann, a birthday card to Fanny who lives on Mallorca, and received a long card from Gayle in Illinois, so bought two stamps for letters to the US of America and will start to write frequently to her old, very dear friend.

She hadn't realised that Norman was only 78 when he died.. and apparently, he had been in great health and spirits, so his death in January of 2014 was not expected, so this must have been a dreadful shock for the family. They had been married for 55 years.. sigh..

I said I would give you the recipe for that Beetroot & Horseradish Relish.. here it is.

This is how she does it, she gets 4 good sized but not huge, very fresh red Beetroots and grates them, using her parmesan grater, the vegetable needs to be finely grated.. NOT chopped. She does this straight into the jar so none of the juice is wasted.

Then she grates about 2 inches of Horseradish root with the same grater. Put in a large teaspoonful of ground or finger crunched sea salt, a dessertspoon of caster sugar and a dessertspoonful of apple cider vinegar.

Stir it well.. adjust the seasoning or vinegar if you want and maybe a bit more horseradish.. but don't make it too hot! She covers the jar with a screw-on lid and leaves it in chilly larder, where you need to keep it, for a couple of days, at least, before using it.. and you must keep it in the chilly larder.

I have nothing else exciting to tell you.. we hope to be back to our slightly more chirpful selves tomorrow.. please stay happy & healthy out there.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 2016.
PostScript: Who noticed the 'mistake' that denotes the level of anxiety in our home.. 

FISH WAS THE DISH OF THE DAY!

You have to agree, she knows some amazing folk! Take this example, she gathered everything up and went to Streatham Hill Station by overland train. Roy picked her up in the car and took her back to the Marmalade Making HQ.

Ann has a large kitchen, she wishes our kitchen was this size but it ain't, so we make do as best we can. Anyway, it is always much more fun making marmalade with someone else as there's a lot of cutting of the skin, before you soak them, that goes into making this delicious stuff.

But it was done quickly, they were aided by Roy who had made them mugs of delicious coffee and recounted funny tales.

Then it was time for lunch.. three large pieces of wild salmon appeared on a dish together with small potatoes and brocolli shoots and fresh hollandaise sauce, she finished hers and Ann asked if either she or Roy would like the tiny tail bit? They both said that they would not. Cheese and home made panne cotta was produced.. heavenly grub.

We've told you before that Ann is a seriously good cook and this meal was up to her normal standard, very slurpy indeed. The rest of the afternoon was pleasantly spent talking about different varities of what vegetables and tomatoes that they were going to grow this year. They have a huge garden, a good sized paved area AND a greenhouse..  you can imagine how deeply envious she is of this space.

Time to go.. into the car and zoom down the hill to the bus stop and a quick trip into MFC, a shop which sells my favourite hummus. And as Ann was saying her goodbyes, she said "there's a treat in WW for GeeGe, see you on the seventh for the V&A exhibition" and off she went.

Mama caught a 137 bus home and looked into WW and sure enough, there was a little plastic bag under her bag. When she got home and had made a fuss of me, she remembered the little bag and went to get it.

"Ann has sent you a treat GeeGee, I wonder what it is.. OH NO, that is so sweet of her, lookielookie GeeGee.. she's given you the salmon tail for your supper". And there it was.. a piece of salmon for my supper, a sweet gesture.. what nice woman that Ann is for I do so love fish.

So she beetled off, found a box of cards plus a stamp and wrote our 'Thank You' letter immediately, it will catch the first post tomorrow.

Moorfields Eye Hospital tomorrow.. hey ho.. they told her that she going to be going through lots of intensive tests and to bring her glasses with her.. she's packed them into her basket and will be gone for several hours.

Thursday is another jolly day, (to make up for Moorfields). A lecture at the Old Chelsea Town Hall on Fashion, Pauline is meeting her at the venue and they'll have tea or coffee afterwards.

The weather today started off gloomy but by the time she got up to Anns' house, which is way up high above Streatham Hill, it was a beautiful late Winters' day, clear and bright, still 'nippy' but oh look.. sunshine! A rare sight, for it has been dull and dreary this winter.

And that brings us to now.. clementine time. We are having another early night as she plans to turn out the lights about nine o'clock. I'll tell you about her trip tomorrow together with the recipe for the beetroot and horseradish that she gave to Ann and Roy today.. it is HOT and STRONG.. excellent with a piece of beef. But.. first you must find your Roots, no, not your ancestors, the Horseradish!

Oh.. before we go, she's identied the tiny black and white bird she saw bouncing about in the North End Road yesterday, it was an adult Pied Wagtail, please go and have a look and see what they look like, we think you'll agree that it is 'snappy' in those smart black and white clothes.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 23rd, 2016.

GAINED.. 1lb.. SO SHE WENT TO SIT IN THE BACK ROW WITH THE OTHER 'NAUGHTY' GIRLS

And they didn't eat sweets or chew gum but they might as well have done so.. for all four of them had gained weight last week and yet, none of them had done anything differently. The only thing she knew was that last week she had not been hungry and probably had not eaten as much as usual but it seems a trifle unfair when she wolved everything chez Jenner and yet maintained her weight, doesn't it?

So these naughty girls, the youngest of whom is sixty, lolled about and searched on-line for silly things with which to amuse themselves, like The Watermelon Babies, the page of which she then emailed to various folk, one of whom, MaryLou said "somebody has got too much time on their hands" but they are very funny! She'd love to do one!

So upon coming home, she searched back through her food diary sheets and found that she has lost 2.5lbs twice this year, the first time way back in January, she had raided Tesco late one evening and came away with all manner of delicious fresh fish and some pork tenderloin and lots of vegetables.

All of which she had eaten that week, except for a big piece of wild salmon which is still in frosty cupboard, aka freezer. But she wasn't eating buckwheat then, and although it is classified as a ' FREE' food, she thinks her body counts it as something else, likewise with bread.

Tomorrow those two loaves of delicious rye bread are leaving our house! She's having lunch with Ann and Roy and having made a large pot of grated Beetroot and Horseradish as her hostess gift, she'll slip these two loaves in as well. . sad as I love those crunchy crusts.. maybe she could keep a couple of slices from the opened loaf and toast them in strips for me.

So no more buckwheat or bread this week as of now.. but when there's just one of you and you eat lunch late every day, it's more like high tea, she finds it quite difficult to make herself eat three times a day as she isn't always here at lunch time.

Anyway, she is going to make herself make one of the easiest and tastiest soups this week, this Pea, Mint and Ham soup is a doddle to make and is delicious!

Put a good sized packet of frozen peas onto a gentle boil with a litre of water + two chicken (or vegetable) stock cubes, add a tsp of dried mint, salt and pepper and boil the peas until they're just tender, whizz them in a bender, add a couple of tbs of chopped up ham, reheat gently until the ham is warmed through and hot. Serve with a dollop of fat free yoghurt, we use TOTAL 100% fat free Greek yoghurt.

What else happened today?

Ah, yes, she got her revenge for Beaky giving her poor finger that nasty blood-drawing nip yesterday. The whole of me got put into the bathroom basin, it was full of soapy warm water and she gave me a bath, then the plug was pulled out and I had to stand there, dripping, soaking wet, whilst she rinsed soapy water out of my feathers.

I was patted dry with a linen hand towl, then suffered the indignity of being rolled up like a porker sausage in a proper towel and finally, I was blown dry with the hair dryer. Huh, and had to stand still whilst she pulled the plastic collar up around my ears so she could get the air in and up underneath the collar, what a palaver. But I am now immaculate. No feather dust on this Parrot.

Talking of immaculate birds, she saw a tiny bird today, the like of which she had never seen before in her life. It was on the pavement in the North End Road, it was black and white with very distinctive markings, it was not in the slightest bit frightened of humans or dogs, she wonders whether, in fact, it was a tame bird who was lost.

It is citrus time.. so we'll report back tomorrow on how the marmalade making goes, that's why she's going to Ann's earlier than normal.. she's taking her seville oranges that she bought last week plus her lemons, the preserving sugar and lots of jars, they'll peel and chop, leave it to soak for two days and Ann will do the next bit and give her some jars when they next meet.

PipPip Dear Readers.. she sent Ellie's Dairy Fairy Julie an email today, because she's having knee surgery on Wednesday.. which is also her birthday.. "best wishes Julie, we hope it all goes reallyreally well for you and that your recuperation goes brilliantly with NO complications".

GeeGee Parrot.
February 22nd, 2016.
PostScript: And, we have to catch up with Mister Bob who left hospital yesterday evening (our time) and is now at home.. it's all go, isn't it?

PLAYSTATION.. NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY IT MADE HER SUDDENLY FEEL WORSE THAN USELESSLY STUPID.

We haven't told you about this, have we? She was telling Debbie Goaty Mum today about how her friend, Freddie Martin, asked her if she wanted to play PlayStation and she thought .. why not!

Well.. what a fiasco.. her character trotted up to where Freddies' was.. or rather, had been about five minutes before! And if she did catch up with him.. what did or could she do? Nothing.. why don't smaller people play something that old foggies can do?

Or are you an old foggie who CAN play Playstation? It was veryvery upsetting how useless she was and it made her feel rather like a stout child who ran as fast as it could but never actually got anywhere, sad.

Moving swiftly away from this upsetting memory, we had a call from NYC about Mister Bob yesterday, you'll all be relieved to hear that he is being discharged from hospital, they have done their work and he's free to go! PHEW.. big relief to all concerned and his friends.

She lit a candle for him and his team and continues to add his name to the list of people she prays for, mostly she says "and friends" but in time of need, God gets given their names as well.

It being a cold, windy and dismal afternoon meant that she came home instead of even thinking to go onto the allotments, they're incredibly exposed and it wouldn't have been clever to be there on a day like today, especially as Chelsea were at home to Manchester United, the traffic was a bit loopy to say the least and the journey would have taken probably twice as long.

She was looking at her calender this afternoon and I have had this wretched collar on for four weeks now.. grrr. I, unfortunately, can still manage to pluck my legs, they don't look as chic and sleek as they normally do but tumtum is becoming feathery again, thank goodness.

But she noticed that a couple of feathers on my lower tumtum had grown back but looked like an arrow and so what followed was most demeaning, one minute I was on her hand, the next, I was upside down flat on my back lying on her legs having my person interfered with!

But she meant well, which is why Beaky's in a 'bit' of disgrace. He gave her one of his sharpest 'nips' this morning, she hadn't done anything to incur his displeasure but he thought she 'might' be planning something, so naughty old nip struck.. and drew blood.

Yes, Dear Readers, she's been nipped a few times by Beaky, this is very shameful as Dagga Dearest NEVER nipped her and on that note, I have to go to bed, we've eaten our citrusy fruits, she had a orange that was pregnant and she remembered to take a photo to send to people, for it was, indeed, a very stout baby.

Have a jolly week folks, I'll report her weight loss tomorrow afternoon. I am not sure if she'll have lost the 3 lbs she wanted to lose but it won't be for lack of trying, that's for sure. For today only a meagre portion of half a chocolate salami plus half a slice of cake passed her lips and the prescribed amount of bread has been eaten and NOT one slice extra, which, in itself, is a miracle.

There we are.. PipPip.

GeeGee Partot.
February 21st, 2016.
PostScript: Freddie Martin is going to be 8 years old in July.

BAH HUMBUG.. MADRID MUST BE DROWNING & FREEZING, IS ALL SHE SAID WHEN SHE CAME HOME WET & TIRED.

What a day! Yesterday, the weather woman said, in a nice cheerful voice "And tomorrow and Sunday are going to be bright and clear, much warmer than Madrid".

Being of nature very suspicious of the British weather during the month of February, she looked outside before getting dressed this morning. "Huh, GeeGeeJuJu, it's spitting rain and overcast, boots and a Beanie and warm trousers" she said and got dressed in them.

And went off with an umbrella down to collect the prescribed things from the pharmacy. "Who are you", she said to a tall young man who smiled at her as he opened the door, then went behind the pharmists' counter, the smiley woman who works on Saturdays said to her, with a wink, "he's the new boy" and they all laughed.

She made her way down onto the Kings' Road and caught a 319 to Streatham Hill. Oh, goodness me, what the hell was the matter? For it took ages to get there, several sets of traffic lights were out of sync, stupid people got stuck and went the wrong way.. mayhem ensued so the plods had to come and sort this dozy lot out.. oi vey.

But eventually she was able to get off the bus and disappear into Bartek.. oh, how most slurpicious, there was a new delivery of her favourite Lithuanian bread being put out AND a dark Brawn! Plus lots and lots of Summer IshPol salad with dill.

"Four pots of the salad with dill please, that chunk of brawn and a piece of that", a fresh horseradish root to mix with fresh red beetroot, how lovely that will be, a couple of little Hamburg parsley roots, together with a small celeriac, plopped into her basket along with a box of mushroom stock cubes.

This means most our meals will be vegetable based this coming week, she'd planned a late visit to the North End Road street market but had to shop at Lidl for my rye bread with sunflower seeds.

Back home on the 137, she emptied WW and set out again, by now the wind was blowing sideways, she left the umbrella behind and pulled Beanie down further onto her head.. "bah humbug to these weather forecasters, why can't they say "it's going to be dire this week end", instead of telling us it's going to be warmer than Madrid.. brrr-grrr", she growled as she made her way to the bus stop.

Off at Fulham Broadway, her first stop being her favourite Orange Man, except he wasn't there! The stall had been packed up and all that was left was his son with a box of pomegranates which had a sign saying "5 for £1.00", so she handed him a quid, took the fruits and went on down the street, there was Karen, kisses were blown across the stall. LookieLookie, bowls of 'pregnant' oranges at 9 for £1.00 & a big bowl of skinny french beans was £1.00.

Well, 18 'pregnant' oranges, I'll explain later, they're absolutely her favourite variety for £2.00, well worth the trip down to the North End Road as she eats a minimum of two oranges a day plus a couple of my clementines as well..

Into the Post Office to get a book of stamps, might as well buy them now as they're going up in price and the 1st and 2nd class are good for ever, a stamp was placed onto a proper letter and the letter put into the post box.. tick.. job done!

OK.. 'Pregnant' Oranges have a strange hard bit at the other end to the stalk, it usually tells you that there is, at that end, a minute orange inside it, we don't know what variety it is that does this but they only come into our markets in February and March and they're divine! They are not overly sweet but very juicy and refreshing.

By now it was a madhouse, the wind was blowing about like a crazy fiend, cold rain was tipping down, stall holders were trying to get their stalls down in some sort of orderly fashion and customers were fleeing for home, she put her head down and purposefully ignored the new cosy looking bakers called Jaffa who, according to Karen, do delicious coffee and cakes as well as tasty middle eastern savoury treats.

Back home they flew down the steps to get out of the rain.. "GeeGee.. you are such a lucky girl you didn't have to go out in that, I saw Mia (a baby African Grey who belongs to one of the shop keepers up in Streatham) and she sends you her very best wishes and I have lots of clementines, come sweetie  pie, it's supper time" and lolly-the-golly, she was right!

Oh, such a tasty snacket I've had, some fresh ham, a minute bit of brawn, I found this most slurpy indeed, a new little crunchy seed treat from the Pet Shop in Streatham, the rest of my morning egg and some hummus with the promise of some citrusy fruitie-tootie to come!

She has written to Mister Tom, asking him to pass our love and support onto Mister Bob.. tomorrow she'll light a candle for him in the Oratory, it matters not that it is a Catholic Church, God doesn't care what religion you are.

We hold this man very dear to our hearts and hope and pray that he's not in pain or frightened. We pray also for the medical team who are looking after our friend, his sister and for his other friends who are as saddened by this news as we are.

She's got to put her eye drops in, a load of washing on, then it will be time for me to go to bed, stay safe folks, according to the man in the post office it's going to be worse tomorrow, she's off down to Parson's Green Farmer's Market to stand and chew the fat with Goaty Mum and to try to not even look at the scrummy produce on Elena's cake stall which is next door to Ellie's Dairy.. sigh.. as you do when it's weigh-in day the next day and you've made your mind up that you want a 3lbs loss on the scales..

GeeGee Parrot.
February 20th, 2016.

Dear God, please take care of Mister Bob. GeeGee & Mama.

The kindness of friends is truly outstanding.. for we have just received a call from Tom in NYC. Who and despite all of HIS fear and worry, took the time and trouble to call to alert us to the fact that Mister Bob has had a heart attack, is in hospital and possibly having to undergo heart surgery.

She has been friends with these two men for thirty years. They are, along with BUB and Peter Jenner, the only men alive, whom she loves, respects and trusts. Dear Readers, you will notice that list does not include either of her two brothers.

The Power of Prayer.. oh please pray, we beseech you.. pray for Mister Bob.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 19th, 2016.

THREE SIX NINE. THE GOOSE DRANK WINE!

Lucky Goose, I'm never allowed even a sniff of alcohol, I wonder how he got the cork out?

In our house, because she is old and creaky, the numbers 3 6 9 refer to Omega Oils that she takes, not to a rhyme that dates back to the First World War. They are important for several reasons. Let's look at the first of them.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids.
Alpha-linolenic-acid. (ALA) plays an important role in making your brain function properly and helps work agains cardio-vascular disease. The research into the health benefits shows it also supporting the following:

Asthma. Arthritis. Diabetes. Osteoporosis. Skin Disorders. High Cholesterol. High Blood Pressure.  Attention Disorders. Depression Disorders. Macular Degeration & some Cancers.

This important Fatty Acid is found naturally in:

Grains. Chia Seed oil. Wheat Germ oil. Rapeseed oil. Green leafy vegetables. Brazil nuts.
Raw Walnuts & Cold pressed Walnut oil. Pumpkin seeds. Flaxseeds & Flaxseed oil.

Likewise with the oil numbers 6 & 9. They're important as well, do your research and incorporate as many sources of these essential oils into your diet as you possibly can.

If you want to purchase a good source of the 3-6-9 oils then ESKIMO are reckoned, by a couple of her professional health practioner friends be a good supplier here in the UK, they are ALSO to be found in Black Cumin Seed Oil.. Nigella Sativa.

Bright and clear here today.. but she needs (which is NOT the same as wants) for nothing, so house work is going to be done instead of jaunting about 'out there', she has to go out after four of the noon day clock to get a prescription for her eye drops but that is all.

Ishpol purchasing day tomorrow as we haven't had any for at least two weeks, it is a fermented food but it has a short shelf life, you can't buy lots of pots and stash them in the coldest part of your chilly white larder.. pity that.

However she's realised that she could buy a small loaf of that tasty Lithuanian sourdough rye bread with caraway seeds ~ goodness me, it is addictive stuff ~ several pots of IshPol, we have a friend who is addicted to it.. aka Debbie Goaty Mum.. and that some smoked ham and a few Hamburg parsley roots all at the same time.

The shop, Bartek Express, the purveyor of these very goodly goods just mentioned, is up on the Central Parade in Streatham, near to St. Leonards' Church, which is 'quite' a bus trip away. AND.. They are also the only place she has ever found who stock Mushroom Stock! Wonderful if you're making a Mushroom Risotto.

She's having lunch with Ann and Roy, who are at the other end of Streatham, on Tuesday, they live high up above Streatham Hill, she calls Ann when her train leaves Victoria, Ann then jumps ~ for she's very nimble ~ into her car and whizzes down the hill to the station, mama gets in and they whizz back up the hill for lunch. Which, I might tell you, is always VERY tasty!

This week is looking to be quite busy for her, lunch out on Tuesday, Moorfields Eye Hospital for a lengthy appointment on Wednesday and a free lecture on the history of several Fashion Houses / companies who have their roots in Chelsea.

This is on at our local library in the Old Town Hall on the Kings' Road and starts at 2.00pm ~ be there early if you want a good seat ~ if anyone out there is interested in attending.

'Three Six Nine.. the goose drank wine.. my sister told her I kissed a soldier, now she won't buy me a rubber dolly'..

Ahh, she kissed many a soldier. Nope, I don't sneak and won't tell tales that shouldn't be told.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 19th, 2016.

Borscht recipes & another tasty thing ~ Spiced Crab Cakes.

Borscht.. ahh, one of her favourite soups, chilled or hot, there are several different ways to make it, all of them quite easy and all delicious .

Chilled Borscht.. no meat.

You need:
2 bunches of beets, washed thoroughly & sliced.
1 large onion, peeled & sliced.
2 quarts of filtered water.
1 tsp of salt.
3 tbs of sugar.
Juice of 2 lemons & 1 tsp of the rind finely grated.
1 tbs of chopped fresh chives OR dill.
1/2 pint of sour cream.

How to do it.
Put the beets and onion into a deep pot.
Add water, salt, sugar and lemon juce.
Bring to the boil.
Then turn down heat to a slow simmer.
When beets are tender, put them and onions through a fine mouli.
Return fine puree to the soup.
Chill until cold.
Serve with the sour cream mixed with the lemon rind & chives or dill.

Hot Beef Borscht.

You will need:
2 bunches of beets, washed thoroughly & sliced.
2 onins, peeled & sliced.
1 lb of beef flank or any other 'soup' meat.
2 quarts of filtered water.
1 large can of tomatoes.
Juice of 2 lemons.
2 tbs of sugar.
1tsp of salt.
1/4 tsp of pepper.

How to do it:
Put the beets & onion into a deep pot.
Add soup meat & water.Add tomatoes & other ingredients.
Bring to the boil, then simmer until the meat is tender.
Puree beets, onions & tomatoes & return to the soup.
Serve hot with pieces of the meat in each bowl.

She's got a recipe for Cherry Borscht but is going to test it before she puts the recipe up on my blog, she's not quite sure about one or two of the ingredients, her mother's writing was always difficult to read at the best of times and Constance obviously 'scribbled' this one down in a hurry!

But this is a 'runner', you'll all love this one!

Spiced Crab Cakes with Saffron (OR Smoked Paprika) Mayo.

You will need.
200 g of WHITE crab meat.
200 g of red crab meat.
3 Salad onions sliced very thinly.
1 Green chilli finely sliced.
100 fresh breadcrumbs.
1 clove of garlic crushed.
170 g of homemade mayo.. you should all know how to make this!
Juice of 1/2 lemon.
1 medium sized egg.
1/4 tsp of ground Allspice.
Black pepper.
Oil for frying.
A small pinch of Saffron OR a tiny pinch of smoked Paprika. (it's hot!)
Green leaves for serving.

How to do it:
Soak the saffron strands OR the tiny pinch of paprika in the lemon juice for at least 15 minutes.
Then mix them into the mayo with the crushed garlic.
Put both the crab meats into a bowl with breadcrumbs & beaten egg.
Add salad onions, chilli & 1 tbs of the mayo.
Mix well, season with the freshly ground pepper & allspice.
Leave this to stand for at least 10 minutes.
Divide crab mix into 6 cakes.
Put onto a plate, cover & chill in fridge.

Heat the oil in a shallow pan, gently fry the cakes on both sides until golden & crisp.
Serve immediately on green leaves with the rest of the mayo.

Phew.. she had happy news this morning! She thought the hearing in her left ear had gone completely beyond the point of no return. But took her heating aids into the hospital this morning to be checked and was told "no, you're ok, it's the wire in the left one that's wonky". And after they fitted it with a new wire, she could hear again! Big phew..

We sent her a private birthday greeting last night but now we, yes, YOU included, are going to sing "Happy Birthday" to Pegeen in Illinois, go on, just do it! It'll be your birthday this year and wouldn't you like to know that crazy happy folk all over the world are singing "Happy Birthday' to you on YOUR birthday?

You know the words.. Now it's past half past five and time for tea and a clementeeny.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 18th, 2016.

The trip to Valerie Ann Worwood went very well but.. she left the chicken stock on the gas when she went out..

The alarm went off at 08.30am this morning.. ugh.. I thought 'rather her than me' and went back to sleep. But she actually got up and disappeared off to switch on the water boiling machine and then headed for the bathroom.

With boiled water she made a percolator of coffee and came back to bed to drink it and wake up. Then she insisted on me getting up but bribed me with all manner of goodies like a piece of poached chicken, I know, it is a most unusual thing with which to break a nights' fast but I AM unusual. We all know this, yourself included.

A quick look outside told her it was bright and clear.. huh.. Romford will be colder, so an extra layer went on plus her long boots. She gave me food and water, kissed Beaky and was out of the house heading for the Knightsbridge Underground station, Piccadilly Line to Holborn, a change took her onto the Central Line and whoosh, she was at Liverpool Street Station.

Dear TFL had cancelled their two day strike and our house to Liverpool Street took her 22 minutes! Much quicker than fiddling about with a bus which would have taken 22 minutes just to get to Victoria Station.

An obliging number 26 came along immediately and soon she was on the Hackney Road and off the bus and walking down Columbia Road to Angela's shop.

In and upstairs for a cup of tea, then they were into the cab back to Liverpool Street and having flashed their Freedom Passes, they were soon on a fast train to Romford, whoosh, the second stop was Romford, out they got and found a mini cab to take them to Valerie's.

Angela to Valerie, mama to Emma.. oh, lordy she truly is her mother's daughter. Her hands are quite magical and her knowledge of how to treat all skin types is phenomenal. Mama answered a question that she has been noticing 'crunchy' noises coming from her neck, so Emma went in there to explore and to see if there was any degeneration of the discs.

Luckily the report was no.. phew.. but a slight amount of tightness in one shoulder muscle is possibly responsible for pulling her neck on to a strange position. Emma asked "how are you sleeping?".. "with difficulty", was the answer, "I seem to be having problems finding the right type of pillow, the ones I have always loved just don't suit my sleeping pattern any longer and it's driving me potty".

Emma laughed and said she understood exactly what mama meant as she, too, was hunting for a new pillow.

Turn over time.. time for her facial.. oh, it is such bliss to be in the hands of a beauty therapist of such a high calibre and expertise.

"Wow.. your skin has changed since your last treatment, your back is dryer but your face, goodness me, I'm going to have to change your formulas completely! You've never been dry skinned on your face and now you are. Has there been any dramatic change in your diet, or home? Please start taking 3-6-9 Fish Oil and up your Primrose Oil, I hope you're still taking it, to a stronger dosage?" said Emma.

"Not so much a change in my diet, although I have lost a lot of weight but I think it is because the central heating is now working at home.." Emma replied, "that'll do it, especially on a cold and damp winter like this one has been, we don't keep a window open and our skins really suffer".

Sadly, all good things come to an end and having slithered back into her clothes, she went out of the treatment room to find a peaceful looking Angela waiting for her. Valerie is off to China to teach and the appointment book will need to be looked at for an appointment for Michele.

She put in a request for Michele for 75 minutes, new clients need longer, and booked herself another session with Emma in six weeks time. They called the mini cab company, said their "Goodbyes and thank you's" and went back to the station.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I could murder egg and chips and a mug of strong tea" said Angela  and mama's response was "there's one right where we come out onto the high street.. follow me" and they slid into the local cafe.

Strong tea in large white china mugs with non-greasy chips and sunny-side-up eggs, yummy.

A fast train back into Liverpool Street and a fast black, aka a London taxi, took them to Columbia Road, upstairs for a cup of tea and to settle Angela in. It was a lot to handle in a few hours and my mama was fading fast, getting up early, catching tubes and buses, collecting Angela, the responsibilty of taking care of someone else on a major jaunt, catching two trains and four taxis, plus, of course, the hopes and anticipation that Valerie would be able to work some of her magic on her dear friend..

And.. having had a deep tissue treatment and facial herself.. which always knocks her for six.

Mama kissed her "bye-bye" and left to come home on the tube, as she was walking up the escalators, she remembered she had left the chicken stock on the stove. Oh no! It had been on all day since 09.00.. GULP.. she raced home and ran down the steps, fearfully opening the front door.. to smell? Nothing. Thank God.. there was no smell of burnt chicken bones OR gas!

What there was, was an amazing looking pot full of dark golden chicken stock which smelt and tasted simply divine. Having divested herself of all her outer clothing, she had a mug of this amber-nectar.. talk about slurp-the-durp.. and two oranges.

And now she's in bed.. talk about being exhausted. She'll sleep well tonight no matter which pillow is used. And tomorrow, you'll be getting two recipes for Borscht.. one with Sour Cherries! Which is, I can assure you, truly extra-specially slurpy.

I'm due a clementine, then we're turning out the light at 20.30, I know it's early for us 'grown-ups' to go to bed but it's been a 'long' twelve hours and.. she's tired.. she's reallyreally tired.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 17th, 2016.

AN OLD FASHIONED CHICKEN SOUP. Aka 'Jewish' Penicillin.

Blimey.. you lot are quick! Well.. not all of you but some of you are 'mighty' fast, we have already received a request for the recipe of Chicken Soup. She is a Protestant but this does not exclude her from being able to make this most wonderful of food 'medicines' and this is one of her recipes.

Chicken Soup.
I Boiling Fowl, of at least 5 lbs in weight.
2 quarts of filtered water.
2 Whole onions peeled and cut into quarters.
3 Large whole carrots peeled.
5 Celery stalks with their green tops.
2 Parsnip roots, washed and cut into quarters.
4 Sprigs of fresh parsley.
3 Sprigs of fresh dill.
2 tsps of salt.
1/2 tsp of pepper.

How to make it:
Wash your chicken in cold water and place it into a deep stock pot.
Add the cold water and all of the ingredients.
Bring to the boil.
Put a lid on the pot.
Turn the heat down and simmer on a low heat for 20 minutes.
Turn off the heat and remove the chicken from the stock.
Strip the meat from the chicken carcass and put aside.
Put the carcass back into the stock and allow to simmer for a further 2 hours.
Strain the soup and chill.
Skim off the fat that has risen to the top of the chilled soup.
Shred the poached chicken meat.
Dd the meat and gently reheat the soup for at leat five minutes.
Serve with some noodles.
Adjust the seasoning to taste.

If you want to, you could add a few chilli flakes or some Louisiana Hot Sauce, they'll clear your sinuses out, that's for sure! Don't bother with complicated food when it's cold, you need protein, vegetables and lots of fruit for your vitamin C.

So eat your soups, Split Pea with Ham is one of our favourites at this time of year, yes, it's great if you can get a Ham bone but don't not make it just because you haven't got a bone. Buy a small piece of boiling gammon and make it with that or even a couple of Chorizo Sausages.

NOW, THAT WOULD BE WONDERFUL!

Any vegetables that look a 'bit sad' get thrown into the bottom of our chilly larder and when we've got enough, they go into the big stock pot with garlic, some herbs and spices, she boils them up, runs them through an old fashioned Mouli that she's had for more years than she can remember and with some grated cheese and a slice of bread, they become a nutricious and warming dish.

There's nothing stopping you putting some into a thermos and taking it to work with you. Miss Betty and she ate many a hot bowl of soup whilst working in the shop, sometimes, for a treat, they would spend £1.00 and get a bag of glorious chips from the Chippy in Elizabeth Street. But that was a BIG treat and it didn't happen every week.

Those two certainly knew how to make a penny squeak.. they were very frugal! It made them laugh as they did the lighting for all manner of different folk and for the Royal Household. Yes, they carried the Royal Warrant and did all HM The Queen and HM The Queen Mother's homes and rewired for the local dustmen who would bring all sorts of amazing lamps into the shop that they had been told "were rubbish".

None so daft as folk..

Anyway, we have had supper. The carcasses are on the back ring of the stove on a very slow simmer, this is the way to break down bones and get the good stuff out. The meat has all been stripped off and is in the chilly larder, we'll eat well this week.

Pay attention to what you eat, it's not something to fill your tumtum.. it's your fuel and you need the best to help you in cold weather to keep you healthy.. and full of Chirp.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 16th, 2016.

LAZYHANDS CROUCHING IN THE COLD.. AIN'T YA GONNA DO ANY WORK TODAY?

She eventually ran out of the house but why did she have to run? Well, she didn't want to get out of that cosy warm bed this morning so our day started much later than normal. Normally, by now, we have written 'The Morning Post' so we're very late with this morning's edition, are we not?

But having got out there, she was quite happy, yes, it was extremely ChillyBilly but she had on her head another Beanie, a scarf wrapped around her throat, a furry lined coat, several layers of clothing and woollen lined boots.

She was bound for middle eastern food shops, there are several in the North End Road in which she knew she would find ground cloves and sage leaves. These were the missing ingredients of a package that she was sending to Michele, the important stuff having been found at Baldwins yesterday.

Mint leaves, Sage leaves, ground Cloves, Bitter Orange Peel, Tincture of Myrrh, essential oil of Lemon, ground Cinnamon. Plus a bottle of Black (Cumin) Seed Oil. She made them all into a neat package and having gone into the Co-Operative Post Office, she went into her mobile for the postal code. Uhh, no postal code, her wretched mobile had disposed of their address, grrr! So she made several calls but no one was home, drat!

So she plodded home, plodding 'cos she had gone into Dickinson's, our lubblyjubbly butcher, and come out with several chicken carcasses. Last night she poached a few chicken legs in a vegetable stock, removed the vegetables and chicken from the stock pot and stripped the meat off the bones.

Having come home and found the address, she went off to our local, highly efficient Post Office in Launcelot Place. Oh.. lookielookie, a Self Service desk. Well, even she knows how to work one of these and after weighing the package and pushing a couple of buttons, out came a label and having paid for it with a Debit Card.. whoosh.. it went off to Pewsey.

Talking about Post Offices.. we do hope and trust that Mister Tom has had luck finding our two packages that are running around NY10017, not being delivered to the right address.. GRRR.

She came home, ladled out some of last nights' stock into a jug, gave me a saucer of scrummy things for my 'High Tea', she put the new chicken carcasses into the stock pot, topped up the water level, added more onions and garlic and put the pot onto simmer.

Yes, I love poached chicken and vegetables, so finding these on the saucer for my tea together with a spoonful of hummus was a big treat.. slurp.

Lots of vegetables and poached meat are on her (and my) menu this week.. to get a loss of 3 lbs takes a little bit of organising, a lot of foods are classified as speedy: for instance Spring Greens, Carrots, Cabbage, Brocolli and we will eat lots of these together with protein foods  such as meat, fish, eggs.

Kefir, some cheese, a few nuts, lots of fruit.. oranges, apples.. these will be the foods that we're going to have this week.. in fact.. everything we love to eat!

Now she's off as she's got to do clever things and I am off to perch on the bedroom pole and have a doze with my full tumtum.. burp.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 16th, 2016.
PostScript: With apologies to Johnny Mercer, who wrote the lyrics to LazyBones in twenty minutes!

HUGO'S BAKED RICOTTA PUDDING.. With thanks to Waveney Provatoroff.

Now, I have no idea how she managed to, literally, put her hand on this recipe so quickly, it was almost as if she knew where it was. Which, considering the state of our poor home at this present moment in time, is or was a miraculous miracle!

Now.. don't, what ever you do use some inferior ricotta, splash your cash and either make it yourself OR trot quickly along to your nearest UPmarket Italian deli and get their FRESH ricotta.

You will need:
12 ozs / 375 g ricotta.
3 eggs separated.
4 ozs / 125 g caster sugar.
1 tsp of cinnamon powder - Indian Cinnamon NOT Chinese which is a different species.
3 fl ozs / 75 mls strong coffee.
2 ozs / 50 g chopped walnuts.

2 pint / 1 litre buttered mould. There has to be at least half of the dish empty as it rises!
Preheated oven 180C / 350F / Gas mark 4.

How to make it:
Blend the ricotta, egg yolks + 3 ozs / 75 g of sugar together and whisk in a bowl.
Stir in the coffee and the walnut pieces.
Whisk the egg whites up to stiff peaks and add the remaining sugar, whisk again.
Fold in the ricotta mixture and pour into the buttered mould.

THERE MUST BE ROOM FOR THE PUDDING TO RISE!

Bake in your preheated oven until the pudding is firm, about 50 minutes.
Turn off the heat and leave the pudding IN the oven until you are ready to serve it.
It is less likely to collapse if you treat this way!

Now we zoom to the question of weigh-in and to her astonishment (and mine) she maintained her weight this week! Which, as she ate everything that Michele asked if she'd like, is another miracle! 139 lbs aka 9 stone 13 lbs, the same weight for two weeks. (Is there perhaps something wrong with those scales, I wonder?)

But she came home, finally, from her jaunts about town with a determined look upon her face, well, the bit of her face you could see. For she had a Beanie on, plus the Max Mara parkas' hood up and a pair of sunglasses. Why the determined look? Well, she wants a 3 lbs loss next Monday.

What's the weather like where you are? It's crisp out there tonight, it was 'pretty' crisp all day with bright sunlight, we heard from Claudia that it was minus 22 Celsius last night in NYC.. gulp.. it's now zero here in London and heading downwards for minus 5 tonight.

And she sees no point in sitting in our 'sitting' room pretending to be a grown-up when mentally she's about sixteen (at the most) and longing to get into those fleecy pj's and she has remembered just how extra-snug a cotton camisole is underneath a pyjama top. So there was much rumaging around in a drawer and an extremely happy squeak when she found a DOUBLE camisole, you women know what I am taking about.

She has spoken with Angela, who is all geared up for their jaunt to Romford on Wednesday morning, mama will have to leave here at some ungodly hour because the Tube is supposedly going to be on strike that day.. boring.. she'll have to get there by bus, a number 11 to Liverpool Street and a number 48 for the last bit. They're due at Earth Gardens by 12.20 for 12.30 appointments, so can't be late.

I'm off to rootle about for a clementine, she's got to do her teeth and eye drops, enjoy the baked ricotta, it's an easy to make and delicious pudding.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 16, 2016.

THE FT & SHE AGREE.. THANKING CHARING CROSS VASCULAR TEAM & OTHER REASONS TO BE CHIRPFUL!

Greetings, we trust you are fit and happy, ready to start the third week of February? Which, we are pleased to remind you, is the last month of Winter. That's very chirpful making news, is it not? For who is not looking forward to springing into Spring.. with longer and, hopefully, warmer days.

It is bright and clear out there in deepest Knightsbridge, she is wearing several layers of clothing, this means that she'll have to divest herself of them before she steps onto the (dreaded) scales at weigh-in but rather that than let added clothing make the scales tell porky-pies about how much she weighs.

There was a lot of sorting out and trying on of clothes here yesterday afternoon. Several pairs of jeans and jeggings (hybrid of jeans and leggings which pull on with elastic waists) are now in the give-away pile. The largest pair are a size 14 and are dropping off her.

Then she pulled open a drawer where there were four pairs of jeans in a plastic box. "Ok, GeeGee, let's see if these fit? If they do, it will be very gratifying indeedy.." and she slid into her Wrangler high waisted jeans from 20.. yes, twenty.. years ago!

She smiled as she did the zip up with ease, taking them off, she tried on a pair of darker denim jeans, maker unknown, again they went on and then, slightly holding her breath, she tried on two pairs of white high waisted jeans and grinned from ear-to-ear as she did up the top button of one pair and zipped the other.

Yippee, oh, yippee indeed, it has all been worth it! And not once has she felt hungry or deprived of YumYum. In fact she has been told off twice by Katy for not eating enough! And because the system does NOT encourage starvation methods, her skin has shrunk as well. Thank goodness.

And.. the very bestest news is this. Whilst sitting on the sink in YumYum HQ last night, she looked at her legs, they were resting on the cooker infront of her, and saw to her absolute joy that A. The bruising had gone and B. The swelling had disappeared and C. Her legs are now the same shape!

"THANK YOU CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL VASCULAR SURGICAL TEAM.. Thank you all so very much".

I told you on Saturday that she had a paper paper to read.. are you with me? A paper paper is a real one, with pages that rustle and can then be used as my bedding, so they are very useful. This paper was a gift from an unknown person, she returned home from seeing a friend up the road to find it in a plastic bag hanging on our front door.

It was the FT Weekend, aka The Pink Comic. And guess what the leading article of the 'House & Home' section was?

'London's Brunswick House has seen many changes in 350 years but has retained its allure'. By Philip Stephens.

This, Dear Readers, you must and should surely remember, is the very same house that we wrote about exactly a week ago today! How about that? The article gives the full history of this most glorious of houses and we recommend that you look on-line for it.

Because she subscribes to various on-line papers, we seldom get a proper paper, she collects the Metro and Evening Standards if she is taking a 'Tube' because they're to be found in piles at all of the Underground Stations and that is what goes into my night cage as bedding, but she does love a paper paper and reads every section, for unless you do, you don't know what you might be missing!

But who is this generous person who leaves her these gifts? We still don't know who it was who gave her those exquisite Italian leather fur lined boots! She's asked everyone but they all shook their heads and said "not me".. it's mighty curious, is it not?

And we do possibly have another reason to be Chirpful, yes, with a large C! Mister Tom might, just possibly, be coming to stay with us for a couple of days on his way back from a business trip, it all depends upon the price of the airline ticket.

Now that, Dear Readers, would only be bettered if Mister Bob was coming too but if you cannot have a 'whole' cake, half will do. And talking of cakes, she had better get her act together and rock and roll off down to Fulham Broadway to get on those scales.

I'm going anywhere, it's far too ChillyBilly for a young lady with not enough clothes on to go outside, I'll loll about on bedroom pole and await her return. PipPip.. ChirpChirp.. Yes, there are lots of good reasons to be very full of Chirp today.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 15th, 2016.

HUGO'S MOST FAVOURITE PUDDING.. in memory of her father who died on February 14th, 1981.

Hugo loved food.. full stop. He loved the hottest curries to be found in any town (and he did usually find them). He loved simple food, he loved 'fussy' food, all sorts of foreign muck and he adored fried eggs with unsmoked bacon.

Not only was he a great cook worthy of giving Constance, who had been classically trained in Paris, a 'run' for her money, but he could also make the most exquisite spun sugar baskets that you, or anyone else, has ever seen.

This is her way of remembering her father, a highly complexed man, no one could, or ever did, say that he or Constance were 'easy'.

Coffee & Walnut Torta.

You will need:
4 ozs - 125 g of unsalted butter.
6 ozs - 175 g of caster sugar.
2 eggs beaten.
1 tsp of baking powder.
6 ozs - 175 g of plain flour.
3 fl ozs - 75 mls of espresso coffee.
8 ozs - 250 g chopped walnuts.

An 8" - 20 cms diameter buttered cake tin.
Line the bottom with buttered baking parchment.
Preheated oven to 180C / 350F or Gas mark 4.

How to do it:
Cream the butter and sugar until light,
Then beat in the 2 eggs.
Add the baking powder to the flour and sieve into the butter mix.
Beat until smooth and add the walnuts.
Pour the batter into the buttered and lined cake tin.
Cook for 45 minutes.

When they lived near Tenterden, if Hugo wanted a distraction, he would 'rootle' around in the dried food larder and the chilly white one and dream up something delicious or he would scoop up any family member that was on hand and drive down to Rye, one of his most favourite places in all the world and he had seen a lot of that in his life. When they moved to Sandwich, it would be to either Deal or one of the other Cinque Port towns.

The other pudding he loved was Baked Ricotta and when he lived in Kensington, he bought fresh ricotta from Lina Stores in Soho and made it when he wanted a treat or reckoned that someone else deserved one, the recipe had been given to him by Waveney Provatoroff, an eccentric, wonderful family friend from Sandwich days.

I know she's got the recipe 'somewhere', I'll get her to find it and we'll post it soon, it's scrumptious.

If you have read the last post, I hope that you've done a mental walk down your memory lane and thought about the various animals that you've either known or had as members of your family, she considers herself to have blessed by knowing them all, either her family's or animal friends.

HeeHee..you know what tomorrow is? It's weigh-in day! And HOW many slices of Pete's dark chocolate birthday cake did she eat? Well, you'll know tomorrow.. 'cos I'll tell you when she comes back from Baldwins the Herbalists.

Bit now it is time for this 'dolly' to go to bed, we've shared two tangerines, I had my vitamins, she's put in her Glaucoma drops.

We want you to stay safe, please allow extra time for travelling, drink hot spiced drinks, eat ginger and stay away from those wretched people who want to give you their filthy germs and viruses, ugh. We think there should be a strict law against people who think they're conscientious coming / going to work when they have the flu or a streaming head cold.

Because they're not clever, they're very stupid and they don't think.. grrr.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 14th, 2016.

SHE WAS A BIG BULLY & OTHER SUCH PEOPLE..

Haha.. that got your blood up, didn't it? Don't fret, Dear Readers, she cares not one toss about the people who bullied her as a child and woe betide anyone who tries to do it these days. They find themselves cut adrift immediately with no lifebelt.

No, the 'Bully' in the title of this post refers to a glorious canine known as Connie, her real name was Conchita something of something and she was a large white Bull Terrier bitch who belonged to a family who lived in Smarden, Kent.

My mama spent a lot of time with this family as they had ponies of all different sizes and during holidays and at week ends, she would cycle several miles across country to ride out, clean tack abd cycle back home again.. that's what children did in those days.. they were very fit.

Admittedly there wasn't the same amount of road traffic as there is these days, there weren't evil people lurking with nasty intent and the only scary things on the road were the South Eastern Milk trucks.

She knew Connie well and oh, what a funny (humerous) dog she was! If she liked you, you had to be careful bending down to talk to her as she had an alarming ability to levitate, so your head and Connie's head would meet 'BANG' and her head was pure bone! Stars were seen by many folk after being greeted by this highly eccentric dog.

At the same time as this, she had a dear friend with whom she was at school, Rosemary. Her parents farmed a large acreage near Benenden and had two of the biggest Mastiffs that were ever born! Crash and Ella, no one ever was stupid enough to try and burgle this family for everyone knew that these dogs lived outside.

Crash, the dog, was known to be 'pretty fierce' (gross understatement of all time) and his reputation was spread by many a Romany hop-picker who was unwise enough to come into the backyard or approach the house without a member of the family!

If he knew you, his bark was much worse than his bite and he liked nothing better than to lie on his back in the sunshine and for you to gently scratch or rub his tumtum and she has a charming picture in her memory of one of Rosemary's much younger siblings 'riding' Crash out to a paddock with Ella, the bitch, walking along beside her canine husband.

She rescued a Pigeon many years ago and called him Beep, as that was the noise he made when she first found him. And after she mended his foot, she put him back outside, he flew off quite happily and she saw him for about two weeks prancing up and down in the gardens.. he had a very distinctive mark on his left wing and so was easily recognisable.

Then one day, she opened the door to find him standing on the doorstep and as the door opened further, in shot Beep! She put him out, he came back in, this farce continued for a week.. so she gave up and had him in when she was in and put him out when she was out.. I regret to say that he slept in an old wicker basket in Dagga and her bedroom.

He loved the tops of doors, his favourites were YumYum HQ and the sitting room, as they're old doors and very thick, he would lie on them and watch her with his black beady eyes and fly after her if she went into another room.

If you spoke to him, he would answer with an 'oompa' noise that came from deep within his chest, he
loved several people, one of them being an old client of hers. She adored him and despite the fact that she was always dressed in the newest of the newest Chanel, she would sit on the sofa with Beep on her lap whilst she and mama talked about lighting, Beep's oompa-oompa noise getting progressively louder the longer she stroked him!

And grown-up friends have had animals of whom she has been very fond. A dear friend, Angela, had a glorious Flat Coated Retriever called Sasha. An extremely large specimen of her breed, she was a dog that was a great softy until you put a lead on her collar and took her out for a walk, whereupon, she turned into a complete delinquent!

Sasha was a rescue dog from Battersea and only God knows what had happened to her in her previous life, for on a lead she was worse than Denis-the-Menace. Very few people were game or brave enough to take Sasha for a walk, however, my mama adored this lunatic and volunteered on a regular basis to take her out.

Once into Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park and off the lead, she was as good as gold, always coming back when called and she would retrieve any amount of tennis balls that you cared to throw or hit for her, but producing her lead and attaching it to her collar turned this lovely dog into a villain!

She was 'well-known' by many a policeman stationed on the Earls Court Road as she walked up and down Abingdon Road five days a week on her way to the park, slavering at the mouth like a black 'wolf', barking and snarling all manner of filthy canine abuse at other dogs, any poor, unsuspecting person who was pushing a pram and as for people on bicycles, well, she loathed them and was paranoid with her hatred of these very obviously dodgy forms of transportation!

Indoors, she was the most loving and affectionate of dogs, even allowing Bumble, a Tibetan Terrier (or was she a Lhasa Apso) to occupy her bed but the whole neighbourhood and the cops did sigh a huge sigh of relief when the Donovans left for Wiltshire at the week-end!

She hasn't had a dog in her life since 1987, her beloved Honey-Bunch died on July 12th. Constance had dogs right up to the time of her death in October 2002, and, as much as my mama loved these two dogs, she gave them both to Mary Ireland when Constance was admitted into hospital.

For Tinker-Bell and Toby knew Mary well and they were country dogs, they had never been in a city in their lives and were used to being able to go out of a door straight into a garden or field.

Ahh.. animals.. past and present. Whose names all evoke memories.. Penny Cocker Spaniel, James Cat, Balu Labrador, three German Shepherds.. Ricky, Rolly and Rupert, Honey-Bunch Malinoise, Ridiculous Nicholas Dalmatian, Toby Whippet and Tinker-Bell Heinz, Darling Dagga, Peter and Beep Pigeon, Victoria Goat, BlueBoy Welsh Cob and Grey Judy Welsh Arab cross, Graf Doberman and dearest darling Connie Bull Terrier, the best 'Bully' therever was.

All of whom we know to be safely up there with Saint Francis along with Constance, Hugo (who died 35 years ago today) and Mary Ireland.. who was Connie's human mum.

Happy days animal folk.. happy days. Thank you for all the joy that you brought her.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 14th, 2016.

LEST WE FORGET.. HERE ARE SOME GREAT BLOGS & A COUPLE OF CRACKING BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ..

How does homemade Quark cheese sound to you? Are you interested? Then skip over to this website  acanadianfoodie.com and have a look at Valerie Lugonja's excellent blog. Ooh, this woman produces some wonderful stuff AND she has pictures! We don't, as you know.. sigh.

She should have asked Michele who is very camera minded to help her with putting them onto my blog but she forgot.. silly mama. But never mind, maybe if Wizard mends her laptop, she will be able to post a few and so you can see what I am blethering on about.

Another site that is well worth a visit is www.vestagardens.ca which is hosted by Juanita and Deb Krause.

Do you ever wonder how food travels? I don't mean how an avocado gets from where it grew to your local food market but, for instance, how the Italians got from Italy to Scotland and set up several very famous food companies?

I recommend that you start of by reading a book called 'Dear Francesca', written by Mary Contini, published by Ebury Press. ISBN 009188176-5. It is described on the cover as 'A cookbook with love' and it contains a HUGE amount of history.

Her second book called 'Dear Olivia' will make you weep, for, although the Italians were our (British) allies during the First World War, they were not in the Second World War and appalling, dreadful things were done to an enormous number of Italians who had lived peacefully in Britain for many years and who had fought on our side against the Germans in WW1.

That's all she's going to say on the subject.

Both books are informative without being 'dry' and have some fabulous recipes in them, they're full of family food recipes, food for keeping a family fed and fed well.

She's mighty miffed at the US Postal Service, she sent a package off to Mister Tom in NYC at least ten days ago now, she used the address he had given her and yet the track & trace notice is that the  address is either wrong or that they tried to deliver this but there was no one there.

What CRAP! How can there be no-one there at 12.21am in a busy furniture showroom? It means that someone is having a 'laugh' but she ain't amused.. the postage cost £9.75 and it isn't there yet! Grrr. And this means the second package that she sent him on February 5th will get the same treatment nas she has sent it to the same address, some ..... idle good-for-nothing-mail man is up to no good!

It is bitterly cold out there, she had to run up the road to give something to a neighbour and.. oh dear! She was mighty glad she had slapped Beanie on, for not only is it freezing but it is drizzling as well, the roads will be like skating rinks, please be careful when you're driving or walking, conditions will be extremely difficult and certainly treacherous.

She has had to turn on the bathroom radiator in order to dry the room out, a pox on these pipes that leak. She is going to get Wizard to put a Stopcock into this pipe so she will be able to isolate it if anything ever happens like this again.

The Combi-Boiler with regards to hot water is efficient for the YumYum HQ as it only has to come a very short distance through a wall but it is a dead loss in the bathroom, for the pipework runs through the concrete flooring and, of course, loses masses of heat coming through this.

She is going to ask Wizard how much he will charge to run the pipes along the back wall, thank goodness, it isn't a long way and to move the basin to beside the bath and with the pipes running along the wall to the basin and the bath, she would be able to have a HOT bath, instead of a luke-warm one.. bliss.

But now it's my bed time and I'm off, I've had my mouthful of vitamins plus a drop of Mimulus, all's well in our world, she's got a real 'paper' paper to read but I doubt that she'll be staying up for much longer.

We called Gayle in Illinois, there was no answer so we have left her a message and will try to talk with her again tomorrow at around eleven o'clock her time. Such a lovely woman, a dear kind person with a heart of gold and a wicked sense of humour.

PipPip to you all, stay safe in this nasty weather.. and to Granny Jo who is lolling about down in South Africa in Cape Town.. "please bring a few of those sun rays home with you on March 7th".

GeeGee Parrot.
February 13th, 2016.

WET OUTSIDE.. WHAT A DISMAL DAY.. BUT NOT LET'S BE GLOOMY FOR THERE ARE ALL MANNER OF DELICIOUS RECIPES OUT THERE.

Numpty plumber # 1 has been and had great difficulty in turning off the mains supply outside, this was pleasing as we know he thought she was stupid not turn it off last night.. now comes the dreary task of mopping up the water which has got everywhere, including underneath the clothes washing machine.

Oh, the joys of domestic life.. but let's not be gloomy, let's crack on and leave dreary things behind us and go to read cheerful making recipes.. like the blog of DAVID LEBOVITZ who is an American chef / author of cookery books who lives in Paris. His blog is called 'Living the sweet life in Paris' and the latest post is on Tangerine Sorbet.. which made her smile just tapping the name on iPad!

You all know how we both have a passion for all things Citrusy and this recipe reads as though it will be being made in our home very soon! Another recent post of his, which was mouth-wateringly delicious, featured a Chocolate Babka.. oh slurp.

Another three blogs that produce great recipes are : SERIOUS EATS by J. KENJI LOPEZ-ALT. SIMPLY RECIPES by ELISE BAUER and a great favourite of ours called SAVOURY SIMPLE by JENNIFER FARLEY.

It was Jennifer Farley's blog that gave her a recipe for cheese biscuits that she makes occasionally and there are a couple of people who have been known to sniff at her basket when she meets them in the hope that she'll have a stash of these cheesy wonders with her and no, the sniffers weren't canine folk but human!

On a totaly diffeeent subject.. do you still or have you ever read Agatha Christie's books? If not, why not?

She read one last night.. the answer to the puzzle of who was the murderer was, was there all along but hiding in the open, if you see what I mean. So clever, such a descriptive writer, you can really 'see' the places and people that she describes.

'THE MIRROR CRACK'D FROM SIDE TO SIDE.. published in 1962.. if you haven't read any of her books, they're well worth looking for at your library. For one cannot just read Food Blogs, 'why not?' I said to her but got a strange look.

Ah well, I think it is going to be an extremely quiet week end, wet underfoot and on top of Beanie means she is loathe to go out there, and the forecast is gloomy with rain forecasted for the rest of the week end.

Tomorrow is the day her father, Hugo, died thirty five years ago. She was in Spain, but her ...... (think of one or several rude words to put into that space) useless brother didn't have the compassion or the sense to pick up the telephone and let his sister know their father was ill. OI VEY indeed.

Moving swiftly along and away from thoughts of that strange man.. we are thinking happier thoughts about dear friends, for we may have one, Patsy, coming to stay in April, it all depends if she can get a break long enough to make the trip from California worthwhile, it's an expensive trip to make just for a few days, is it not?

And she wishes that she could arrange for a deardear friend to be magic'ed over here for a visit, they met in 1990 when Gayle and Norman moved to London, they were a couple who adored London and they lived here for many years but like most ex-pats, his company posted him back home, to Chicago.

They have stayed in touch and it was with enormous sadness that she read Gayle's card giving her the news when Norman died in January 2014. Gayle is a loving woman who adores being a GrannyMa and has moved from Chicago to be nearer to her family but to read the following sentence in her card made my mum veryvery sad BUT thankful for Gayle wrote 'since Norm is gone, I now live in a retirement home; still get so lonesome, glad my family live near so we get to visit often, so pleased to have another grandchild. God is good to us all'.

She went onto say 'that she remembers our friendship and wishes that we could visit like we used to', between the two of them, these two had almost every membership card in town and were always jaunting off to see and listen to something. Yes, she wishes they could visit too.

Domesticity is rearing its' ugly head again, it's time to go and put another couple of towels into the spin dryer.

Reasons to be chirpful.. the drip stopped.. we have a pan of yummy soup on the stove waiting for an early supper.. and she has a new book to read tonight.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 13th, 2016.

Walking on water. Ugh, the mains water pipe has sprung a leak inside our flat!

Ugh indeed!

Luckily she had taken her shoes off in the early evening yesterday and gone into the bathroom and trodden on a WET floor mat.. 'ugh.. where the hell has that come from? There has been no mad parrot cavorting in the basin, how come the mat's soaking wet?'

She took the cleaning things out of the bottom of the cupboard under the sink and all was revealed.

Oh dear.. dripdripdrip.. the MAINS water pipe into our house is leaking a fast leak! Grim news folks, she put her boots on and rushed outside and went underneath the pavement to turn the water supply off, only to find that those ......... (put your rudest applicable word there) numpties have done something to the outside lever of our water supply which makes it impossible to turn it off or to even lower the pressure.

Praise the Lord, one of the crew at the freeholder's office was still there and answered their telephone at past six of the evening clock and she was able to alert him to the emergency. Numpty Richard is the plumber, they said they would call him to get him to come asap. He has now sent her a message saying he will come today between 11.00 and 13.00 hours.

In the meantime, a baking tray just fits underneath the drip but it fills up within an hour, the tray overflowed during the night but she had put towels and spare bathmats down to try and soak up the water and is now emptying the tray every thirty minutes.

And all of this flipping mess is because the numpties did not install a stopcock on the mains pipe inside the flat. Grrr.

Do you know where your stopcock is? Have you turned it recently? Did it turn the water supply off? In low temperatures pipes can freeze, are yours all lagged or protected from extreme weather conditions? She has no idea how long this pipe has been dripping but it must have been for some time.

This, therefore, has put a stop to her plans of going to Baldwins or anywhere else such as a Farmer's Market or Borough Market to get goaty milk. But as it is ChillyBilly out there, she's quite happy to have an 'excuse' not to go out.

We heard from Mister Bob in NY that their temperatures are heading for zero degrees Fahrenheit, now that, folks, is seriously cold and will freeze many a pipe if they aren't protected.

It will certainly freeze the ground rock hard, so if you have even the smallest space outside, please remember to put out some bird food and a dish of water with a tiny amount of salt and oil in it to try to prevent if from freezing. I thank all of those of you who do DO this on behalf of my Avian friends around the world.

Off we go to empty the tray again.. a pox on water leaks and inefficient plumbers.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 13th, 2016. 

Good golly Miss Molly, it's cold out there.. Good golly Miss Molly, wot'cha gonna wear?

Blimey.. crikey and any other word that you can think of in the same vein of description.. it was very cold out there this morning. There had been a 'hard' frost and our garden was still frosted when she left at midday, old Mister Sun was nowhere to be be seen.. he was probably on his lunch hour tucked up in some cosy warm cafe.

The postman even had full length trousers on! So now you know how cold it was, for these mad men run around in shorts unless the temperature is hovering in the region of zero degrees Centigrade. They're very silly-billies indeed.

But she wasn't! Oh no, for having opened our front door and seen how her breath practically froze upon impact with the air, she shut the door very smartly and dived into a drawer which holds her thermal clothing. A long sleved, high necked vest came out together with a pair of thick cotton tights. Then into her sweater cupboard she went and pulled out a wonderful sweater she bought whilst she was staying with Zaira (my greatest fan) in Rome in December 2005.

The label says it is 100% pure Merino Wool, she treasures this sweater.. A: because of the memory of the day she bought it when shopping with Zaira and B: because it is, without doubt, her warmest sweater, it has a neck that opens like a shirt or buttons up high around your neck.. no reddies for guessing which way she was wearing it today!

And out of a cupboard came another prized Roman piece of clothing from the same trip, a Max Mara gaberdine parka jacket. The lining is made of a very fine tweed and the hood is lined in this and edged in fox. It is an article of clothing that will never date and, even if it did, you would still keep and wear it, she will, that's for sure!

Cotton tights, proper sweater, thermal vest, knee length boots, woollen trousers, parka, a fine wool scarf around her neck and gloves PLUS a new pretty Beanie on her head! Pat gave her a bundle of three new ones last Monday, one, a lavender one, she took and immediately gave to Michele, it looked so pretty with her auburn hair.

Dressed in this amount of clobber, it is, thank goodness, a very good thing that she's lost inches for otherwise she would look exactly like the Michelin Tyre Man.. sniggersnigger. She and WW went off to the recycling depot to dump endless pieces of plastic, then onto the North End Road to get the stuff on her list.

And, on the way back she went to her favourite Lotto shop to get a FREE lucky Dip Lotto! Two of her numbers came up again last Saturday. She now needs to go to Baldwins tomorrow for nobody had any essential oil of Lemon, she needs that, plus a bottle of Tincture of Myrrh and has remembered that she has run out of both the essential oils of Clove Bud and Cinnamon Bark.

NO chemicals get used in this place, partly because she hates the smell of them but more importantly because they ain't good for yours truly.. aka me. And, she makes a potion that kills all known evil germs.. dead.

We're waiting for a large pot vegetables to simmer down and become soft, they'll be moulied into a puree and put back into the stock in which they cooked, Soup-the-Loup is a deliciously warming thing to slurp on an evening like today, dried bits of sourdough bread get added along with a piece of cheese that's passed its' best.. this roughly grated over the top of the bowl add an extra tasty taste to the soup and saves waste.


We don't like waste of any kind and so she was extremely annoyed with herself when she found a huge pomegranate that had somehow escaped our eagle eyes, hidden itself behind a jug and gone soft. She'll cut it and see what it's like inside and you never know, it might just be what I'd love to play with, especially when all the white surfaces are so clean and shiny..

Pomegranate seeds.. juice.. Beaky flicking the juice.. white cabinets and their surfaces.. get my drift? She's incredibly tolerant about some of my behaviour.. thank goodness.

And here we are for the rest of the day, she see's absolutely NO point in going out there again for it is getting colder by the minute and so.. creak creak.. that drawbridge is coming up again.. creak creak.

Toodle pippip.. hey you folks out there.. stay safe.. drive / walk carefully on icy roads / pavements & stay warm.

GeeGee Parrot.
February 12th, 2016.
PostScript: That's the joy of Sourdough or Tuscan bread, they don't ever go bad as in mouldy, they just go rock hard and are perfect to add to a rough vegetable soup.