GeeGee my African Grey Parrot

I am sorry to write this will be the last post on this blog as I have to write the following news.

At 6.35pm on the 18th of October 2022, GeeGee died in my hands. She died as the result of a heart attack.

Wrapped in a scarlet woolen scarf, I buried her on the 20th of October on my allotment, a place where she had been an extremely happy visitor for all the 18 years we had been together.

To say that I miss my little Grey feathery faced girl and am saddened beyond belief is an understatement. 

And so I send thanks to all of you, who knew her personally or through this blog, who heard of her death from myself or through mutual friends and have expressed sympathy or condolences about her death.

Goodbye to you all and thank you for reading GeeGee's blog. 

Sally.

8th March, 2023.

VERY SAD NEWS.. HM QUEEN ELIZABETH 2nd DIE THIS AFTERNOON.

        VERY SAD NEWS.. HM QUEEN ELIZABETH 2nd HAS DIED.

This is quite a shock, we all knew she wasn't 100% and she didn't hold the Privy Council meeting but for those of us in the UK and around the world who are members of the Commonwealth and who were born after June 1953, she is the only sovereign they have known.

My mama was born during the reign of her father, King George 6th, (she's old folks) and now she will have a King again as her sovereign. There was / is talk of him not being known as King Charles 3rd, we wish he was going to be but it isn't down to us but it will be pretty strange.

Ah well, what a life she has had and what an extraordinary one too.

So for the last time ever we are going to say 'God save our Queen'.

We are both saddened by this news. 

GeeGee and Sally.

                                            Greetings to you all.

Yes, I know it has been a long time since I posted anything on my blog but my life, like yours I presume, has not been as normal ever since that pesky virus poked it evil germy nose in to everyone's lives.

But hey ho, here we are heading fast in to Autumn having had a hot summer with very little rain. 

She spent 5 weeks looking after a tiny flock of Bantams and they have made my breakfast very scummy indeed. An egg a day scrambled with a tiny amount of palm nut oil has been absolutely delicious. 

There are 9 left in the box and that is all I will have until next summer when she gets to look after them for the time when their owners go on holiday to Iran. After they're finished it will be back to hens eggs again.

Which brings me to this startling statement.. she has decided that she is going to have a few chickens out at the allotment, well, of course they'll be at the allotment, she couldn't have them here with us at home, could she?

The reason she wants them is they're very good at cleaning the ground / soil of slugs and other things that eat our vegetables without our permission. And their manure is very good for growing vegetables! 

She want to make their coop, aka chicken hut, out of plastic as much as possible. The reason being is that you can really clean a plastic coop out much better than a wooden one. With a wooden one, you are always going to have a problem with the dreaded red mites which can be a real pest as they feed off chickens' blood.

Anyway, lot to think about and design and cost. 97% of the plot is already fenced with a chain link fence which is good as it means that no foxes have access to our plot. She intends to build a large run to which they will always have access to without her having to let them out into it. The coop will be situated inside this big run. It will be built up off the ground and have space for them + several nesting boxes.

She's been talking to our friend Debbie who, being a goat keeper, knows all about animals being escape artists and it was she who gave us the chain link fencing, so she will advise mama on what mesh to buy to make the chicken run vermin free.

Now it is time for our supper, we eat early these days as she only eat twice a day, she slimmer because of doing so. 

So there's our latest news. We hope you and your families are happy and healthy.

Best wishes to you all. GeeGee and Sally.

8th September, 2022.

WHO LIKES CURRY? HAVE YOU EVER HAD A GREEN CURRY SOUP.. IT'S GOOD.. NO, IT'S BETTER THAN GOOD.. IT'S GREAT!

In fact, it's a cracker of a soup!

This recipe will serve two so double it up if you have more mouths to feed.

You need:
1 tbsp of ghee or coconut or vegetable oil. She always uses coconut oil.
1 hot red or green chilli which you must de-seed and chop quite finely.
1 tsp of ginger paste, you make this by grating a ginger root with a very fine small grater.
1/2 a stalk of lemon grass chopped.
4 dried lime leaves chopped.
4 tbsp of Thai green curry paste.
1 tbsp of creamed coconut.
600gms - 1.5lbs of cauliflower separated into small florets.
800mls - 1.5 pints of boiling water.
1/2 tsp of salt.
150gms - 5 & 1/2 ozs of peas or edamame soya beans either fresh or frozen.
10gms  - 1/4oz of coriander leaves chopped.
Juice of 1 lime fresh.

How to do it.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the chilli, ginger paste, lemon grass, lime leaves & curry paste and fry for about a minute over a medium heat.

Add the creamed coconut, cauliflower, boiling water and salt and cover with a lid, cook at a very gentle boil for about 7 minutes until the cauliflower is tender. DON'T OVERCOOK IT!

Blend the soup with a hand blender or in a liquidiser until it is smooth.

Return it to the pan, bring it back to a gentle boil and add the peas and or beans, cook for 1 minute, add the chopped coriander and the lime juice just before serving this delicious soup.

QUICK.. TASTY.. PRETTY.. EASY.. SLURP!

Time for my bedtime. Hopefully I will get her to post another recipe tomorrow, I think it will be Minced Chilli Pork Noodles.

I know she's buying pork fillet from Dickinsons, our very lubblyjubbly butchers tomorrow, she has a proper old fashioned mincer so she'll cut off some of the fillet to make this.

No waste on a fillet, so she'll freeze the rest. Good night to you all, stay safe wherever you are.

GeeGee Parrot.
January 14th, 2020.

'THE LOST WAR HORSES OF CAIRO' - YOU HAVE TO HAVE GUTS OF STEEL & NO TEAR DUCTS TO READ THIS BOOK WITH DRY EYES

An childhood friend of hers recently told her about this book, it was in her local library and she read it over the past two days.

Constance had plopped her onto a pony at a young age and that was it. She hasn't ridden for over twenty years but her love of horses is still as great as her love of avian, canine and feline folk.. And she includes donkeys and mules in this love of equines.

The book is the story of how Dorothy Brooke in 1930 started rescuing the horses that were shipped to Egypt during WW1.

Only a very few of them were shipped back after the war, the rest were sold.

The equine hospital charity that she started in Cairo still exists and has been extended to, thank God, a number of other countries.

Be warned.. this book will make you cry but then the 'stories' that are occurring at this very moment as she taps this are equally dreadful.

We have already written at our disgust at the appalling behavior of the Australian Prime Minister and the disastrous fires that are currently burning throughout the country,  made even worse by the knowledge that a great many of them were caused by arson.
  
The horrifying situations also caused by mankind currently happening in : Yemen. Syria. Iraq. Palestine and the Israeli invasion and current occupation of southern Lebanon which no one ever talks or writes about.

The Iranian destruction of the Ukrainian airliner this last week killing 176 people.. what the hell were their air Traffic Controllers doing in order to let this happen, the aircraft would not have left Iranian airspace and they would have still been in contact with the aircrew speaking in English, is this the reason the Iranian government do not want to release the Black Box which has all the verbal communications plus the aircraft's altitude and speed recorded on it?

The world is not a 'happy' place. 

Therefore, it is up to every one of us to be aware of doing 'right' and being kind, whether it to be an animal of any breed or another human being.. every day.

40% of sales from the book 'THE LOST WAR HORSES OF CAIRO' by Grant Hayter-Menzies go to the International Brooke Animal welfare facilities dedicated to improving the lives of working horses, donkeys and mules across Africa, Asia and Latin America. 

GeeGee Parrot.
January 11th, 2020.
PostScript: This post is far more important for you than recipes, they will come tomorrow.

BUDGET.. DON'T JUST SPLOSH THE DOSH.

Because she is her parent's daughter, she knows how to make her money go further than most of her friends and they ask her how she does it and here are some of her ideas.

First up.. don't flash your cash in overly expensive shops of any kind, just because the shops are full of new clothes, footwear, gadgets and toys, it does not mean that YOU have to buy them1

Next, use your library. Only buy books and DVDs if they are ones that you need and that you will keep. 

Unless you plan to use it a lot and several times a week, do not join an expensive gym.

You do not need the newest smart phone or the fastest Broadband connection, she told a friend recently what she paid for her Wifi connection - £29.00 (including vat) a quarter - and it nearly made him sick.

Find a proper butcher, fishmonger and local market or if not, a proper greengrocer and grow as much as you can. Their produce is all going to be a great deal fresher than that to be found in the supermarkets.

DO NOT WASTE FOOD. The outer leaves of a cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, carrot peelings etc, may not be what you want eat in a bowl of steamed vegetables but chopped up and put into a pot stock - which you have made and frozen - and with onions and garlic, then pureed either with a hand held machine or put through a Mouli, they make a thick and delicious vegetable soup.

Learn to wash your clothes properly, she washes her sweaters by hand, then rolls them in a thick towel to extract as much water as possible and they allowed to dry away from heat.

Find a proper boot and shoe mender.

Now I know that we are incredibly spoilt with the range of food suppliers we have here in London, if she wants Arabic, Chinese, Indian or Malaysian, Polish ingredients, she doesn't go to a normal supermarket but to one of their own food shops.

Here in London, they wouldn't dream of selling anything that wasn't of the freshest or best quality, if they did, they would be out of business very quickly!

She makes a meal, usually enough for two or three portions so two portions are frozen. Then all it takes is the heat and time to reheat it.

She uses the Co-op, for which she carrys a membership card, where they give you 5p for every £ that you spend on their own brand items is a great deal more than what Sainsburys give you, which is 1/2 a pence!

And this month her budget is being squeezed even tighter.. for our trusted and much appreciated washer dryer died at the beginning of December.

It was second hand and we had it for eight years but she is not just going to splosh the dosh without knowing that she had saved up the money. 

And she has.. so tomorrow she is off to see a friend, who sold her the old Hoover washer dryer, to see what she has in stock.

For whereas she doesn't mind washing 'smalls' and sweaters by hand, double duvets and bottoms sheets are a 'bit' of a struggle.

So that's what she is up to tomorrow. She's in search of a washer dryer.. but one not made by Whirlpool!

Tomorrow, at some point, you'll have a few recipes of our favourite 20 minute meals.. PipPip.

GeeGee Parrot.
January 9th, 2020. 
PostScript laptop might get the boot as despite being repaired by our much beloved friend it is causing her grief..

OUR DISGUST AT AUSTRALIA'S PRIME MINISTER 'FIDDLING LIKE NERO' & NEW AUTHORS FOR YOU.

We are as angry and saddened beyond belief as to what is happening in Australia and to learn that a great many of these fires were started deliberately is beyond comprehension.

And for Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister, to have gone on holiday to Hawaii.. well, talk about 'fiddling' whilst your country burns. He will forever be likened to Nero.

Sadly, there are some people who are truly evil and these arsonists are amongst them.

Onto other subjects..

We like a good book, yes indeed, we certainly do and she recently found two new, to us, authors.

Adam Brooks, whose first novel 'Night Heron' is scary beyond belief as it is very close to the bone and so believable given what is going on with technology and safety at the moment. I strongly recommend that you read his four books in the sequence in which he wrote them.

Lisa Gardner has written a great number of books for which she been, quite rightly in our eyes, internationally acclaimed.

Four of her books have been made in to TV movies: Hide, The Perfect Husband, At the Midnight Hour and the Survivor's club.

I promise you that you will be engrossed in her plots they're clever!

So there you are.. new year = new authors.

What have we been doing? Well, not so much I'm sad to tell you. The weather has been dismal, if not wet and soggy underfoot, it has been cold and very grey, not conducive to gallivanting about at the allotments and certainly not the kind of weather that she'd take me out in.

Although I have been out, for we were both invited by Andreea and Juliano for Christmas lunch. And to meet their twins, Amelia and Lukas, who are now 13 months old. Much squealing went on when they saw me perched on their mummy. 

I didn't get to eat much as it was all to exciting but my mama did.. infact she ate so much that she was glad that there was no public transport and she had to waddle home.

As she felt just like a python who had unlocked its' jaw and swallowed a calf. Luckily I was in my light weight small travel cage with the outer layer as it was quite chilly and she waddled fast, passing Gloucester Road, the turning to South Kensington, the V&A, there was Yeoman's Row and with a hop and a skip, we were home.

I fell upon my bowls of yumyum and we were early to bed with a book.

Which is where we spent the evening of the 31st of December.. aka New Year's Eve. She had had a couple of invitations which she had refused and we were happy to spend it quietly.

2019 was a strange year for her, those two naughty heart attacks had scared her more than she liked to admit and the behaviour of some friends was so weird that she sat and thought about them and realised the word 'old' applied and that she had no longer anything in common with them.

It's not the amount of friends that is important, it's the quality of those friendships.

Today is a quiet day at home, although it is a reasonable looking day out there, she is taking this next week quietly. She had a rotten cold and it has left her with a virus called Labyrinthitis!  

She had been feeling dizzy when moving about and happened to mention it to her nice GP doctor who said "come to see me tomorrow at 11.30".

She went yesterday and he examined her ears, asked her to follow a pencil with her eyes without moving her head and a few other tests.

"Here's a prescription for tablets, stay active but don't move your head to the left so quickly, it's your left ear that's affected. I want you to go to have a blood test, so here is the form, please do it asap and I will get the other ball rolling as well".


She went to have her blood test done, then onto the North End Road Market where she bought avocados and apples and came home via the library as Lesley, aka LuLu, in New York had recommended a book called 'Warlight', written by Michael Ondaatje, the author of The English Patient.

That all for today. We both send you our best wishes for 2020, don't forget to write 2020 and not just the year as forgers can alter the dates and make all kinds of trouble for you!

GeeGee Parrot.
January 9th, 2020. 

SOUP SOUP GLORIOUS SOUP..

Cold or hot, thin or thick, pale or brightly coloured, vegan or animal broth. Soups come in so many different ways that it is quite beyond her tapping capabilities to list them all!

She makes a soup every couple of days during the winter months and a great deal of them are just made with vegetables, my favourite is a Moroccan style carrot and red lentil soup.

It's very thick as she uses two cups of well rinsed lentils and at least six fat chopped carrots.

Start with olive oil in a big saucepan to which you add a large chopped onion and three cloves of crushed and chopped garlic, fry these gently for about 2 minutes, then add the spices.

Use a teaspoonful of : Powdered cumin, cinnamon, paprika, coriander seeds and an inch of grated ginger and turmeric roots.

Fry everything gently over a low heat and stir well for about 3 minutes.

Add the chopped carrots, continue to fry and stir everything.

Add 1.5 litres of vegetable stock and the lentils, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for at least 30 minutes. Turn off the heat and puree the soup in the pan. Taste and add salt and pepper.

It's thick and incredibly warming. I love it.. so does she. We give it to our Lebanese friends who live near by. They love it as well and we hope you do too!

GeeGee Parrot.
December 4th, 2019.

YOU KNOW I CAN'T TAP THE LAPTOP.

And she who does has been 'otherwise' engaged.

I don't know why she hasn't written my blog for two months, it's her left foot that is causing her gyp, not her hands, so she should have been tapping away. But she's been in a bit of a blue 'funk', this happens when she's not able to garden.

Alarm and despondency came to town in her left foot. First of all it started in her heel which, when she trod on it, felt as if she had speared by a BIG evil sharp pointy thing.

That has subsequently turned out to be something called Plantar Fasciitis and mighty sore it is too, then a hard sore lump appeared on the outer edge of the foot.. very sore it is too.

After having an mri, it transpires there are several other things amiss in this poor old foot. She's due to start physiotherapy soon.

But, the great news was that there wasn't any sign of a fracture! But enough of this doom and gloom, she's old, things start to go wrong when you're old - poor old bat.

However, it has meant that nothing of any great consequence has happened at the allotments, until they had the results of the mri, she was told not to garden in case it was a fracture, it's mighty untidy.

Almost all the leaves are off the trees and are on the ground, they need to be raked up and put onto the raised beds and covered with thick layers of  horse manure and wood chippings, these will break down and enrich the soil over the winter months.

Mr and Mrs Worm take them down and make themselves a soft bed, which means an excellent harvest next year.

Talking of harvests, she went out there last Friday to collect herbs and four strange vegetables. They were Trombincino Squash and mighty tasty there are too. 

She also pulled a few beetroots, a couple of green onions and picked a large bunch of parsley, it is strange how parsley LURVES this cold weather! Her five big clumps of it are growing like crazy and the taste is strong. 

Just what she needs at the time of year for soup making. We eat a lot of thick soups in the winter, usually vegetable ones, sometimes she may throw in a chicken leg or two but mostly they're made of different vegetables with lots of herbs and spices.

And.. oh yes, coconut milk! As she is allergic to dairy, she now uses coconut oil and milk instead and mighty tasty they are too.

The trick is to find addictive free coconut milk, she uses Biona coconut milk, this is made with just water and nothing else.

Sometimes if she's 'pushing the boat out', she'll soak desiccated coconut in the milk and laksa paste to make a soup reminiscent of her Malayan childhood.

She's off now, not to Malaysia but yumyum HQ to get our supper.

It's a bitterly cold day, luckily we are fortunate to be inside and protected from the weather. Unlike a lot of animals and people around the world whom, through no fault of their own, are being exposed to ice and snow and very low temperatures.

We'll have a large bowl of carrot and red lentil soup which she made this morning. It is very thick as she pureed the vegetables with a hand held blender.

YubbaDubba.. we lurve thick soups, what's not to like, they're just vegetables, herbs and spices with no disgusting chemicals, they warm your gullet and stomach and they're incredibly easy to digest.

Slurpicious, that's what they are.. slurpicious.

We hope that you, wherever you are, have something equally tasty to eat for your supper.

GeeGee Parrot.
December 3rd, 2019. 

IF YOU DON'T TELL PEOPLE HOW YOU FEEL - HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO KNOW & OTHER SUCH THINGS.

You can tell it's grim outside, for here we are back again.

She has received an email from her GP - General Practioner - about her drugs, the drugs she hasn't collected from the pharmacy.

And this, together with something she needed to check with the surgery, prompted her to call them.

"Have you received the results from my latest blood test" she inquired and was very pleased to hear they were absolutely fine and all levels of whatever they had tested her for were where they should be.. always nice to know.

Then the receptionist asked if she had received the email about the 'heart' medications and she gathered up her courage and told the woman, whom she has known for several years, that she wasn't going to take them and why.

And that she had already discussed this with 'young' doctor Ben. "Hmm, yes, it's here on his notes, talk me through it as well" she said and so mama did, that the wretched blood thinners had kicked off a major attack of anal bleeding and that the statins had made her feel like a zombie.

And as the zombie sensation stopped 36 hours later, in the evening of the day after she stopped taking them, she put 2 & 2 together and made 4. 

And last but not least, she told her about yesterdays visit to Burchells, which prompted the receptionist to say. "Go straight to A&E to have your foot x-rayed. If Joanna, the podiatrist, thinks it is a fracture and she's certainly, if not more, qualified about foot bones than our doctors, then you should get it done as soon as possible" she said. 

As it's pouring with rain, she's feeling snug and her foot isn't sore at the moment for not a lot of walking has been done today, she'll do this tomorrow early, she knows from experience that A&E's are like bun fights on Friday afternoons!

In the meantime.. back home on the ranch.. I know what supper is.. it's brown basmati rice which she will cook with ginger and turmeric roots, barberries and two chopped up chorizo sausages. 

When the rice is nearly done, she'll place on the top, chopped red onions, purple sprouting broccoli, crushed garlic and a tablespoonful of flaxseeds on the top when she puts it into a bowl.

It's a dish to drool over, do you do one pot suppers like this, you should, for they're simple, easy on the digestive system and very tasty. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, just omit the chorizo and perhaps add a bit of seaweed to give you iodine.

And now I am going to fly off to supervise the preparation of this dish and to scrounge whatever is edible and accessible.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 27th, 2019.