Lunch

 

We enjoyed a special lunch today - partly as another celebration of my seventy second birthday. We went to "The Silver Plate" restaurant which is within the main Sheffield College building. There, post sixteen students mostly pursue work-related courses ranging from engineering to hairdressing.

One of the departments specialises in food and hospitality and the main point of "The Silver Plate" is to give students real life opportunities to experience meal preparation and table service. The young people are carefully supervised and over many years the department has developed a reputation for excellence.

The dining room is spotlessly clean and the tables are expertly laid out with polished cutlery, glasses and small flowers in vases.

Shirley and I were assigned a young waiter called Thomas. He is just eighteen years old and we were the very first diners that he had ever served as he only began his course three weeks ago. He was really nervous so we had to assure him that he was doing a good job and need not feel overstressed. With his shaking hands, he managed to spill a little water when he poured it into our glasses but I assured him that I would not be complaining to his supervisor. This made him chuckle.

The very reasonably priced three course meal was utterly delightful. There was college baked bread to accompany our starters. It arrived in a small hessian sack that had hot ceramic beads in the bottom. I chose the ham hock terrine but Shirley went for the mushroom bao buns. 

For the main course we both picked the sea bass dish (see above and below). I asked Shirley to take a picture of my plate saying, "I plan to make my blog visitors jealous!". The fresh fish was steamed to perfection and the complementary accompaniments - braised rice, bok choy, slices of lotus root and coconut and lime sauce enhanced one's enjoyment of the sea bass.

For dessert, Shirley selected the Eve's pudding but I opted for the baked egg custard tart with nutmeg ice cream. Both were exceedingly yummy. We each had a glass of good quality sauvignon blanc.

It was a superb lunch and we vowed to return early in the new year. Securing tables can be challenging as "The Silver Plate" is a well-known secret for Sheffielders who enjoy great food that is above the norm and very reasonably priced.

Peacemaker

 

Blessed are the peacemakers. It seems that a kind of peace has broken out in the middle east under Trump's watch but will it last and what is the way forward?

Gaza  is little more than a wasteland of concrete rubble now. Who is going to fix it and where is the redevelopment plan? Besides, even before this most recent "war" broke out, living in Gaza was like being incarcerated in a giant coastal prison. Such a situation could never be sustained in the long run but for years it provided perfect growing conditions for Hamas. There has to be a better way.

Today is a good day in that all living Israeli hostages have been freed and some dead hostages are being prepared for dignified transfer to their families. Numerous  Palestinian hostages are also being released but not all the many thousands who were imprisoned without trial or legitimate evidence. Their stories have not really been told.

Of course, The President of the USA has capable lieutenants on the ground - middle eastern deal brokers like his real estate investor son-in-law Jared Kushner and his hand-picked special envoy - the real estate developer Steve Witkoff. With their team, these untrained diplomats have surely been charged with forging an agreeable way forward that will lead to Palestinian statehood and the quelling of the most bellicose Israeli voices.

Past history seems to militate against optimism but you never know. After all, on a much smaller scale, peace broke out in Northern Ireland at the end of the last century and that seems to be holding. Can a similar miracle occur in The Holy Land? Time will tell. Today is merely a beginning, a foreword - with all of the main chapters of the weighty tome to follow.

In the interim, however reluctantly, it seems we are obliged to bow to The Great Peacemaker.  This is not a day for understandable pessimism, it's a time for hope.

Laziness

In the modern world, laziness is frowned upon. In our waking hours, we are all meant to be doing something, achieving things and if we idle away our time, we are supposed to feel guilty about it. The term "lazy" is generally used in a negative manner.

Let me examine this issue for I am of the opinion that laziness is intermittently beneficial to human beings.

If we constantly live manic, high energy lives that involve ticking off this before ticking off that, then I would ask - are we really living at all? As the poet W.H. Davies concludes in "Leisure":-

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

and I agree with him. Time for relaxation and reflection is crucial if we are to live fulfilling lives.

Investing every waking hour in work and home projects means that you never get time to weigh up how things might be going and before you know it there's new stuff in your mind

Why should we ever feel guilty about bouts of laziness? Why not just say it loud and proud - "I had a lazy day yesterday - I didn't do anything!"

People will often say, "What are you doing tomorrow?" or "What did you get up to yesterday?" or "What have you got planned for next week?". The answer "Nothing" should not always be delivered apologetically because "nothing" is often something. Closing your eyes to listen to the rain. Staring at the horizon as memories of long ago wash over you. Just sitting with your eyes half closed, breathing slowly and rhythmically in a kind of trance.

Laziness is an underrated state and it is quite different from boredom that is  tinged with misery or withdrawal from the world of activity because you are just plain sick of it. I would go so far as to say we need laziness and to be very wary of the manic street preachers.

Buddhist monks often sit cross-legged, seemingly doing nothing. Perhaps they are watching a wood louse scurrying across the floor and maybe they are conscious of the wind ruffling the trees that grow next to the temple. Who is to say that they are living less significantly than the executives who jet across the world, logged in to their tablets or i-phones with people to see, places to go? 

There is a lot to be said for being lazy.

Eruption

Last Sunday, I walked up our long garden with little Margot. On the way, we passed the stump of the old horse chestnut tree. It was felled four years ago and I now use it as an extra bird table. I was quite efficient at removing any signs of new growth as we did not want the tree to grow back via side shoots.

On Tuesday afternoon, I took our kitchen  caddy bin up to the large compost bins that are situated near the top of the garden. Again this involved passing by the horse chestnut tree stump. Within those forty eight hours, something amazing had happened.

A lot of mushrooms had burst forth from the earth - dozens of them in clusters. We had never seen fungi there before and I am sure it was connected with the dying tree stump and its roots that no doubt reach out like tentacles beneath the soil's surface.

Perhaps the air temperature and the autumn moisture in the air had ignited this sudden burgeoning of life. And it's funny how this should have happened just as I was beginning to read the book I recently retrieved from a drystone wall - "Entangled Life". It is all about fungi and the secret worlds it occupies across the globe.

Our fungi is I believe a common honey fungus. It is especially connected with dead tree root systems and can be quite destructive in any garden - perhaps spreading to other susceptible plants. There are no known chemical treatments that can successfully destroy honey fungi. You either live with it or dig out old tree roots and stumps before burning them. Some gardeners even bury rubberised barriers like pond liners in the ground to prevent the potential spread of honey fungi but there's no way I will be doing that. I prefer to let nature simply takes its course.

McKee

I think I have blogged about Pete McKee before. Let me see... Yes! Go here.

He is a fifty nine year old Sheffield artist who found his own, distinctive  style some years ago. His work is much loved in this city and many homes display original McKees or prints of his work.

A typical painting by Pete McKee - "Spit and Polish"

He grew up on the Batemoor housing estate to the south of the city and attended a secondary school where I used to teach. In fact, he was there at the same time as me in the early eighties.

The city's Weston Park Museum honoured him last year by inviting him to curate an exhibition of his own work and through the past eleven months that particular gallery has been very popular. I had been before with the granddaughters but I vowed to go back on my own so that I could soak it all up without distraction on a quiet midweek afternoon. That absorption day was Wednesday of this week.

Pete McKee based this painting on a seaside photo booth snap

Only a few months later his mother would be dead.

Through the paintings and the carefully considered labels that sit alongside each one Pete McKee bared his heart. His mother died when he was only seven years old and that tragedy has stayed with him like a tattoo. He knew deprivation but his two brothers, his older sister and his widowed father gave him a loving family home which he recalls with gratitude, affection and good humour.

He has always been passionate about music and his football club - Sheffield Wednesday. His pride in the city of his birth is almost tangible. He would not want to come from anywhere else.

Pete McKee's painting of Sheffield's "pram man" - John Burkhill

who has raised over £1 million for Macmillan Cancer Support

Pete McKee does not paint for high brow intellectuals and he does not have some lofty philosophy to convey through his art. His style is simple and cartoonish, rooted in his experience and the warm, often humorous way that he looks at the world around him.

There were some instructional videos at the exhibition

I thoroughly enjoyed those two hours of absorption and I am very glad that I took the trouble to go back before the exhibition shuts down next month. Thank you Pete!

"The Wake" - Pete McKee recalled his mother's funeral when he was seven

BOSH!

That's my boy Ian on the right. With Henry, who is on the left, they formed a vegan food company nine years ago. It is called BOSH! They have had a big impact as vegan influencers and have sold over a million cookbooks.

Recently they have been working with Britain's biggest supermarket chain to produce a new range of vegan ready meals. The supermarket chain is called TESCO and earlier this week the BOSH! ready meals started to appear in hundreds of TESCO supermarkets throughout Great Britain. Smaller TESCO stores are not yet stocking these new BOSH! products but all of the bigger stores are. It is quite a coup.

I keep my fingers crossed that this initiative will really work out for Ian, Henry and their team. The truth is that TESCO are very skilled when it comes to launching new products. They tend not to back losers.

This evening our family evening meal consisted entirely of the new BOSH! products:  

• N’duja Sourdough Pizza
• Margarita Sourdough Pizza
• Creamy No-Duja Pasta
• Goan Chickpea Curry
• Creamy Mac & Greens
• Teriyaki Mushroom Noodles
• Hearty Vegetable Lasagne
• Ultimate Bean Chilli

They were all very tasty and though we think a couple of the dishes could be tweaked a bit more we were pretty delighted with the range. I especially liked the Teriyaki Mushroom Noodles, the Creamy No-Duja Pasta and the Margarita Sourdough Pizza.

I should apologise to North American, German, Swedish, Irish and Australian visitors because currently you won't be able to purchase these new BOSH! products in your local supermarkets but here in Great Britain I hope that some of you guys will look out for BOSH! chilled ready meals in the cold display aisles at TESCO.

Needless to say, I am pretty proud of that son of mine. To make it with TESCO is quite a thing.

Poem

 

Utopia

There you can be who you want to be -
Nobody’s yelling or carrying on.
Pure brooks replenish rivers
Fit for swimming and drinking
And on the seashore, no tangled plastic
Nor the matted corpses of seabirds.

There you can really create stuff -
No one’s dissing your best endeavours.
Sleep is easy in the quiet safety of home
With dreams that are serene
And on the TV screen no endless tales of crime
Nor gloomy broadcasts all the flaming time.

There you feel you are truly living -
Nothing’s menacing your peace of mind as
Starlings flock in rhythmical shoals
When autumn days submit to dusk
And on the edge of felicity - no sudden thuds
Nor faraway grey thunder grumbling.