Not Quite a Recipe

Its been years, I mean that must be something like twenty or thirty years since I made it.  The kids would have been at school.  I am of course talking about macaroni cheese, its so long since I cooked it I wasn't sure I remembered the recipe not that a little thing like that holds me back following recipes is not something I've ever been known to do properly.

**Macaroni cheese has been on my mind for the last week or so d'ye see.  Its an easy meal to make even without a recipe and considering the cost of groceries its not very expensive at all.

This evening I decided tonight would be the night.  I hadn't bought anything particular for it but who doesn't have pasta and cheese in their house?  I put the pasta to boil, grated the cheese, strong cheddar then  I grated an onion, put some cream in a pot added garlic and stuff* and put it on to bring it to a simmer.

The pasta and sauce were done at about the same time all I had to do was layer the pasta, cheese and onion into the dish, pour the sauce over all and put it into a preheated oven for about half an hour. The thing about macaroni cheese is that by the time you put it in the oven all the major ingredients are cooked its a question of letting the cheese and in this case onion melt and blend into the sauce and the macaroni and that to me is very much up to individual taste.

I almost forgot the salad!  I always have a small salad and this one was quite ordinary so I needn't have mentioned it but if I'm going to talk about recipes I have to mention the salad I always have with a meal.  I don't often have a starter or pudding but I do always have a side salad.

I don't think I could honestly recommend macaroni cheese for every day or even week but every couple of months or so is about right.  I hope I don't forget and leave it another twenty years.  I doubt I have that many left!  Its so easy!  You can mess about with it adding whatever spices or sauce you fancy and you get this very tasty and filling meal.  Loved it!

* I shouldn't have lumped almost everything as stuff!  No, I won't give the full recipe but it occurs to me that I should give at least a proper idea.  So, I used garlic, I said that!  And a bay leaf, I always use bay leaves they add so much, but remember to take them out when you've finished cooking.  I added a little mustard, not much I'm not a fan of mustard.  And that's it.  No flour or butter and I always use cream not milk it may not make much difference to anything except the way I think of it but the way I think of it is all that counts when its all for me.

**Aaand.  I want to add although you probably know that you don't need to use macaroni to make macaroni cheese any pasta will do I used the spiral ones this time and I think they work better than skinny ole macaroni.

Relatives coming to lunch this week I think I'll make it again with salad.  Yes?

Budget Day

I missed todays budget, not that watching the damn thing like a hawk would have made any difference to my life but I would like to know how much its going to cost me and I know in advance that it is going to cost me. At a guess I'd say increases on booze, fags and paye, benefit cuts will almost certainly include jsa, medical cards and care and perhaps some other areas.  I just can't decide if I'm eager to find out the worst or if I should have a glass of wine while I still can.

Its been such a lovely day I had to go to town the gardener was due and budget or no he has to be paid.  I also had to go out for a short time earlier this evening and it was a joy! Seldom do we get such lovely clear evenings, when I got back I couldn't resist spending a minute or two in the garden with the dogs and cats.

Time now to spend what's left of the evening doing subtraction.

Olly

Olly is much better today thanks for asking but last night was very worrying.  He was sick, clearly that's not his fault but he was so ashamed!  I think his guilt made it much harder for him.  He wanted to go into the garden so I let him out, this would be between say 1 and 1.15am. After about ten minutes or so I opened the door to call him, Jezzie ran in but there was no sign of Olly.

I left the door open thinking he would try to slink in unnoticed, did I mention its quite cold in the small hours now?  He didn't.  Torch in hand I went into the garden and peered everywhere.  I couldn't see him.  I went to the back door opened it and again went out to try to see him. He was nowhere to be seen. I left the back door open and returned to the front to see if had materialised there. He had not. Now I left both doors open, it was really quite chilly, and settled to wait.

At about 3am Olly reappeared shivering even more than when he first went out.  I locked all the doors and settled for a night on the sofa watching him.  At about 5am he climbed onto the back of the sofa and let his paw dangle just above my head.This is his favourite alpha male position.

I knew he was feeling better.  He is not a young dog and cocker spaniels are not known for their longevity, but he is much better today and so therefore am I.

Cronetalk is a State of Mind

I don’t want to become suspicious of peoples emotions or their emotional motives that’s a whole other world from common or garden greed and criminality.  Psycho is one thing there are no emotions so its a kind of permanent stand alone thing even if the psycho doesn’t think so.  There may be some, probably many, who have no idea they are psychopathic they can't see it for them their behaviour is normal and that's frightening. 

Actions caused by strong emotions are very different.  As far as crime is concerned: if a crime is committed there is a case to answer which I think is separate from the emotional reason for committing it although the reason may be taken into consideration if it gets to court.

If there is no crime but there is emotional overload I don’t want to be the one who says stop being silly; you’re on your own. Some may be strong enough to deal with the sense of isolation others almost certainly won’t.

The coward in me wants to run at the mere hint of someone in emotional depths; what could I do?  But there is another part of me that says the least you could do is listen.

Yesterday a woman,  she looked about the same age as me, but even more intellectually challenged than I am approached me to tell me how much she liked my hair.

Can you imagine?  No of course you can’t.  I had left my hair down something I rarely do when I go out, its way past my shoulders now thick and wavy and half a dozen colours all of them mine.  I thought it looked like a gray hell she thought it looked lovely and actually stopped me to say so. I smiled and who wouldn't? I could have brushed her off with less than a sentence some I've no doubt at all would, but for why?  Instead I slowed we chatted for a bit, this lovely childlike woman changed my mood and my day. .

I never want to be the one who rushes by.

---

If someone lied, again, should I call him out it would be easy or should I think of my three good friends two dead one permanently grieving?  I will not take suicide less than seriously if others choose to play another of their sick little games with it that's their choice.  It says quite a lot about them.

Biddy Early 1798 - 1874

An artists impression of Biddy Early with the bottle she was said to always carry with her.  One of Irelands most famous witches although she is very unlikely to have called herself a witch.  Biddy was a healer and much respected, she worked with herbs and natural remedies.  She was also clairvoyant.  Biddy was charged with witchcraft but the trial collapsed when no witnesses would testify.  She was taught by her mother who died when she was sixteen.  Biddys world was one where most people could neither read or write, she like so many was never taught.

She was not known to belong to a coven, through her long life she continued as all witches must to teach herself.    She was charged with witchcraft but the trial collapsed when no witnesses would come forward.   Biddy married three times and had one child a son.   Biddy appears to have paid no attention to the church or any other authority.  In almost every way she was exactly the kind of witch we all strive to become.

Apart that is from the drinking, two husbands dead apparently from drinking too much alcohol, which is not as surprising as it sounds to us now,   Biddy lived at a time when barter not cash was the main means of exchange among poor people.  Hers was a world of small gifts for service and many of those gifts were whisky and poteen.....

This is not intended to be a strict analytical account that would bore me.  This is a small tribute to an amazing woman respected among her community and clearly very much of that community.

Respect

My Fault!

So okay I weakened I admit it I am not a strong individual.  I give in to weakness, to sad looks and soppy kisses particularly when they're from her.

She is elderly now, not strong, a fragile creature with teeth problems.  I swear coming and going we all get teeth problems I don't know why they were ever invented.  She is old skinny and fragile and I weakened, but however weak and soppy I may be, I told my relative when we went shopping that I was not going to cook it for them. No! I was being firm I bought ready cooked chicken in four easy to pull apart pieces.

She is currently purring into the radiator which I thought I might as well switch on this being the time of year when however clammy the days the nights can get chilly and an elderly cat feels the cold.   She is wrapped around the radiator purring like a pneumatic drill and doubtless dreaming of chicken,  Its really surprising how, considering she can only lick in a very disdainful way at her own multi vitamin proper cat food, she yet manages to chew quite large chunks of chicken, she was too greedy to wait while I chopped it into bite size pieces,

The only problem with buying her chicken is the other four insist on  having their share.  Its expensive and time consuming and Olly was so excited waiting for his turn he forgot to bark.   She has been the subject of some debate today.  I say she is eighteen I mean she's my cat I should know!   My relative says she's nearer twenty.  I don't want to think about that, twenty and chicken may not be entirely unconnected.

I'm fine with it.  I am!  I have five well fed animals and herself is happy.  Of course I still had to buy all the regular cat and dog food, they don't look upon chicken as a proper meal.  Its a snack.   I've had enough I'm finishing with this subject right here besides they're all waiting for me to go into the kitchen.

Shit Happens...

I like Bournemouth, the people there were old when I was young. Got a decent beach too, I got sunburned there once. I think if I was giving a false address I would give Sandbanks, unless of course you actually live there, but even then. Oh well perhaps its sheer coincidence. Again.  Bournemouth, its not a bad place to live, better to be on the edge of the town  rather than stuck in the middle of it.

 High on the cliffs there's an old house with a big garden. Its a relic of other times. If you look up you can see, under the eaves, tiny, airless windows where the servants used to sleep. If you go down the stairs you will see the old kitchens where the staff worked from dawn until the master said it was bedtime.

The house has other windows long, gracious, staring sightless into forever. The master bedroom, a huge room seeming to spread from one side of the house to the other has a built in closet. Sometimes if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of rustling, clothes? At other times you could swear you hear the sounds of a stifled giggle or smothered snarl...

Its midnight, a full moon rides the world and the old house appears to sway in the summer breeze. A shutter is hanging open and the sound of wood hitting stone echoes through the garden and off the cliff. The trees, a welcome shade during the day, at night become gaunt twisted arms reaching for the unknown. In the distance you hear the cry. Instinctively you turn, no, it can't be, not a banshee, not in Bournemouth...

The sound changes becomes a mournful howl in the night. Is it a dog no, surely its more like a wolf? The impossible thought is too close to the lost, sorry sound to be easily dismissed. How likely is it that one of the oldest, most feared creatures may be out in the big old garden on this clearest of moonlit nights?

The history of the werewolf is interesting, for three weeks out of four your average werewolf is the most peaceful, apologetic of creatures: urbane, sophisticated he wouldn't dream of cocking his leg on someone else's lamp post, but come the fourth week the moon rises and the howl spreads across the wolfs territory. You try to comfort yourself with the thought that when howling the werewolf is not actually killing. Unsurprisingly it doesn't help much.

The unaccustomed noise has sent icicles of apprehension dripping down your spine, and now with heightened senses, you notice there are other worrying sounds. The almost but not quite footsteps, the scraping, clawing at the door. Is it possible someone knows what a handle is but not how to turn it? You rush to close the shutter and can't fail to notice the silhouette flooding across what had once been a lawn, surely its very large for a dog? and are dogs claws so long and crooked? And, surely as hunched as it is, its standing on its hind legs? How many dogs walk upright?

You make sure all the doors are locked and barred, sure nothing's getting in here tonight. In the closet the noises are different, a shift change? Little things shiver across your mind: Can the closet be opened from the inside? Is it possible there's a passage from the closet to the garden? Or are you mistaken, did the sound change to a pathetic Baa? Perhaps its not real people, could it be an entire flock of sheep are in there? How cosy...(Werewolves are shape shifters. They can do sheep)

In the garden a black cat stares at the moon, ears twitching and tail swishing at the sounds from the house. Unperturbed by the wolf it settles under a tree to watch the deliberate approach and the unprovoked attack. If you look closely you can see a tiny mouse trapped and wriggling in the cats paws.

A werewolf, in Bournemouth? How too, too Gothic. And, WHAT?



First Posted:-  19/11/2012  Thought I'd give it a little dusting and airing today

Office Junior me

cronetalk

http://www.123rf.com/photo_12012828_this-is-an-antique-old-fashioned-black-telephone-switchboard-with-plugs-connectors-buttons-and-switc.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_switchboard

http://www.britishtelephones.com/ericsson/n117.htm

I brought these here because they were a huge part of my early working life. In an office they would simply be known as switchboards often abbreviated to 'boards'. As far as I know the technical name for them was PBX (private branch exchange). The biggest multi person boards were called 1A Lamp you would find them in the GPO, later to become BT.  Large companies and local authority offices also used 1A lamp boards.. PBX  10 x 50 or double the size with say a maximum of two operators would be the usual kind of system in most small to  medium offices.

I started work as a junior, the lowliest position in office work.  It was my job to make tea, run errands, do the filing,  take the blame and operate the roneo, anyone else remember them?  A roneo was a kind of printer you typed whatever onto a prepared, kind of grease proofed plastic sheet, attached the sheet to the roneo and ran off as many copies as necessary.  As a junior I would also if I was lucky get to type anything the secretaries would let me,

Junior was a time honoured position, most secretaries even if they went to college started off shadowing more senior staff. Today the position is possibly filled by interns working for nothing and if it is its a disgrace.

I didn't mind being a junior.  I liked running errands it got me out of the office, making tea was easy and I could make mistakes in my typing, if I had done so in later years I have no doubt I would have been sacked, even I would sack me! And I loved the switchboard.

I really did love those big old beasts of machines, if you pulled the cords right there was a very satisfactory twang if you were in a bad mood, and it was amazingly easy to listen into the telephone calls if anything exciting was happening which unfortunately in my experience never was.  You know what kind of excitement would there be?   The occasional office affair, well yes, but they’d hardly need to make phone calls would they besides everyone knew the old switchboards could be leaky things with anything personal.

No one stays office junior for ever you either leave and get a senior job or you stayed and got a promotion the problem with staying was there are relatively few jobs in small to medium companies where being promoted feels any different.  I changed jobs often for a couple of years and then settled for routine.

Anyoldhow it seems looking back as though one day there were these wonderful highly polished wooden machines with long cords that sprang back and forth and made music and the next there was a much smaller plastic box with no character and the cords had been replaced by switches.

The new boards were actually not much different to the lovely old ones, they were just smaller but there was one advantage, if it could be called that, people could now make their own calls, dialing nine would get them an outside line and off they would go.

I don’t recall caring or even noticing when the old PBXs went.   I was probably too full of shit to admit missing them but looking back?  I loved those machines and I missed the humanity of them but mostly I think I missed the feel of the hub of the office

If you wanted an ‘outside line’ you asked the board.  If you wanted someone called you asked the board and if you wanted to gossip you stood at the switchboard and chatted in low voices picking up, dropping and rejoining a conversation whenever the board stayed quiet!  The switchboard was kind of where the whole office came together.   I miss them

Natural Born Witches?

I wrote this as an answer to someone on pagan discussion board.  It's what I and in a way what I hope all practitioners of the craft believe.  I brought it here, as poor as it is, because I like it.

I don't know if you're a natural born witch or not how could I?   All I can tell from this post is that you've not given a shred of evidence.  There was a time when I thought it best not to tell someone if I doubted their veracity.  Why if they didn't hurt me would I attempt to hurt them?

I have since learned that not saying something can be judged as much as anything we do say.  I can't tell if you're a natural born witch but I hope you are because its obviously a huge part of your faith in yourself and we all need to have faith in ourselves.   

What none of us should do is judge others and find them lacking if either they are not or can't prove that they are naturals, that is just a form of class or caste system.   No witch needs or should have to become expert on mythology to be a witch; its not called mythology for nothing. 

Belief in the ancient Gods and Goddesses is not proof of being a witch nor is being Wiccan or being Satanist. I have in the past read umpteen books about witchcraft and various different faiths but though they may have been part of my learning process they were not the core of it.

Obviously I do still read about the craft and what I suppose must be called polytheism but now I'm more likely to be selective choosing to research something I may have heard or read either in a book or online further, not to prove or disprove any point but out of interest and in order to gain understanding.  Imo no witch should ever claim to be an expert on the craft we are all always learning.  

I might decide to cast a spell for something and decide I actually don't like the ritual I've worked out for myself in which case I might check my books and online to see if there is something that suits me better.  If its available and a witch likes it I see no reason why s/he shouldn't make use of it and if something is made public the author/owner of the spell is making it available and therefore can have no objection.

Since it appears to mean a lot to you I hope you are a natural born witch.  It doesn't mean much to me personally I accept us all and providing there is no harm to me take a very relaxed attitude to the beliefs of others or how they came to the craft.

---

I should add that if there is one faith I do have a problem with its Satanism its a construct of Christianity the upside down cross etc based on Christian beliefs.   I suppose its not really a problem the beliefs of others are nothing to do with me, but I am sceptical of Satanism or rather I instinctively distrust and dislike it.   No obvious reason but does there need to be, hmm?

---

Another thought of mine, actually a response to some silly little upstart on another discussion site:

DeleteDeleteAccountants, are the rest of ye lawyers by any chance?  What you're saying is that some parents teach their children to add up which leads us naturally to the fact that some parents teach their children to be witches.

Its all possible.  I disagree with you about spell casting to cast a spell accurately and powerfully requires a lot of concentration, learning and practice.  I don't want to cast a spell for something and find out my family, the neighbours and the cats pajamas have got it too. I hope you are a good accountant.

I find it irritating that some of us are so dismissive of the genuinely held beliefs of others, what they're actually saying is:  "You can believe anything you want but if you believe X you're nuts and not too clever either".   Who gave them or anyone the right to judge?  Harm none is part of the Wiccan rede there is nothing wrong with it, all it does is tells us all to be pacifist in all our dealings.  I don't consider myself bound by it but nor do I consider it harmful or dictatorial, basically it pretty much mirrors my own attitude so I even at times quite like it and certainly have no problem quoting it as one of my own beliefs if I think the occasion merits it.

This idea of natural born witches does interest me and yes I do think its possible, I believe we all have magic in us, being a witch is more than magic and takes a long time to learn or understand, or at least that is my opinion, others may and some definitely do, disagree.  

Liam Adams = Guilty

Has been found guilty of sexually abusing his daughter Aine starting when she was aged five.   I've written about this case previously and I may add links but I'm not sure I should Aine is free now.  She is as she herself said beginning her life at forty and who would want to spoil that beginning by reminding her of the details she wants to forget.   I'm not suggesting for one minute that Aine or anyone of her family or friends would read this only that what I condemn in others I can't in honesty produce here.

Its not necessary to use the facts to further condemn Adams he will be sentenced on the details already known. Maybe his family will stick by him.  If I were his daughter I might not but if I were his brother I would consider it my duty, and to be fair its not possible to stop loving someone we carry on regardless I hope the Adams family do rally round.

Its been said that Liam Adams father was himself an abuser and obviously the impression is that Liam and/or other members of his family were abused, they will know and I hope if its true that will enable them to offer Liam some understanding.  Its hard not to be angry and maybe smug but Liam Adams grew up in a very strange household and we should all think on that before condemning him utterly.

Gerry Adams snr is said to have been a very unpleasant person I feel sorry for his wife and children.   I think they may have suffered in silence for years partly because its what families do, partly because their family is one of those steeped in the ugly roots of the IRA and also because as Gerry jnr rose to prominence it must have been or felt impossible to even raise the subject.