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The bedside lamp illuminated my clock which advised that it was ten to six, so I switched off and turned over, only to hear, in the same instant, the man clattering upstairs with his feline entourage.
“Stay snuggy!” he called gaily, as if such a thing was remotely possible once the dear little darlings are up.
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Rising early is a good thing, – when there is daylight.
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Our clocks go back two days before the much anticipated, or dreaded, election on November 5th.
(Guy Fawkes. Appropriate?)
So then, it will get dark sooner.
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My choice? Dark mornings.
Perhaps we could do something radical like splitting the difference. Then we could have one of those confusing time differences to other countries.
Four and a half UK to India.
It seems to me that when we flew from Delhi to Kathmandu, years ago, the difference was 20 minutes.
Give us a break!
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Google tells me it is 15 minutes, which is marginally less confusing. I could swear it used to be 20.
China makes things much easier by having a single time for the entire country.
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Fair enough, but consider the size of that great nation.
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And of course it is regions such as Tibet that get the dirty end of the stick.
Region?
Tibet is a country with very dark mornings.
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Having offered bare trees, I have moved on to red and gold, though the images are quickly becoming redundant.
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Each time I set foot outdoors I seem to acquire another hundred pictures.
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Wet, dark and soggy as yesterday was, it generated a few pretty photos for their own album.
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This, obviously, was not yesterday.
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Nor was this.
A cheerful tree at Tractor Supply.
We go there to stock up on animal food, more often it seems, than food shopping for ourselves!
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Food.
Boarding school cures you of being fussy and afterwards, I could eat almost anything. Not brains. The nuns could stand over me all day if they chose, but it was not getting past my lips. Shudder.
Returning to England after six years in Asia, suddenly I had milk, with cream on top. I could have any variety of chocolate bars and sweets.
And, aged 14, I was always hungry. I had convinced myself that I was one of those people who could eat anything without gaining weight.
My uniform had an “expander-waist.”
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Months later, going home for the summer, I found that my other clothes were tight. Horrors.
I wasn’t putting up with that. So, back at school in the autumn, I resolved only to consume foods that were not fattening. Hard to find any such thing at an English boarding school that specialised in stodge.
So I grew thin at what was an apparently alarming rate and one day Sister Mary Immaculate stood over me, commanding me to EAT.
“Or you will have trouble later in life!”
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It was only a matter of months, so anorexia never took hold although I was fairly ill briefly, as a result.
Maybe that sister was right in her predictions, or maybe she put a hex on me. She really did not like me.
Learning that I was going, she retorted:
“You won’t be sorry to leave!“…
“Not sorry to see the back of you!” I muttered to myself, “you old cow.”
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What I learned eventually, was that I am lactose-intolerant and over time I began avoiding other foods.
Then in 1991, I became vegetarian, eliminating meat, chicken and fish. These days, dairy products are available that have lactose removed and they had become my staple.
Boring, but fine by me, at least until I had my tonsils out. Yogurt and cottage cheese being soft, they were no problem, but somehow I went right off them.
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So I looked for some of the Indian foods I used to like. Vegetarian options and not all too spicy. It wasn’t the spices that bothered me, though.
It was garlic, not even detectable, until too late. And it appears that there is now a mania for including it in even the simplest foods. Listed in micro-print of course.
So much for microwaved meals.
Furthermore, gluten makes me feel ill, necessitating more restrictions. No more oatmeal?
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There is “gluten-free” oatmeal and today I feel less nauseated, so I may be able to stick with my breakfast choice.
While my throat was sore, I searched for what used to be called sherbert. Ice cream without the cream. It came in gallon containers.
You can still get it by the pint, but now it’s called sorbet or gelato. I suppose someone figured out that by attaching a foreign name you could charge twice the price for half the amount.
Though to be fair, mango sorbet is much nicer than that strawberry sherbet of olden times.
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First ice this morning.
What a great ice sculpture!
Well, at least that’s the one thing that has never changed in South Africa. Our time always remains the same (never an hour forward or backward – thank you for small miracles)! I love red and gold in nature – for me, these are the colours synonymous with Autumn. I also learned in boarding school to eat everything that was on the dinner table … and I’m still not a picky eater after all these years. I did learn to eat a little less nowadays, because with the arrival of the dreaded menopause, it seems my body wants to see how fast it can gain weight. Beautiful photos, as always. I’m excited to see your first ice sculpture … I hope it’s the beginning of many for the Winter ahead.
Our clocks go back on the 27th, so the long nights begin! I switched to lactose-free quite recently, though the fake cheese (made from coconut pulp, apparently) is nothing like cheese. So I bought tablets that I can take to offset the effects of eating real cheese, and now I can eat it twice a month. It feels like an exotic treat now. Luckily I have no gluten issues as yet, and I am most definitely not a vegetarian.
Best wishes, Pete.