Reasons To Be Thankful
Photo © Rob Jones
After a grand day out yesterday to watch the rugby in Cardiff (Wardrobe fail - got dressed in the dark, and discovered on the hottest day of the year so far, after peeling away excess layers in the Principality Stadium, I was wearing Italian blue, Wales’ opponents in the Six Nations that day - AMM knows all about my wardobe failures of old), I discover today is yet another fabulously sunny and cloudless day. Such a feel-good day.
Making plans for a trip to a beach on Anglesey, I was reflecting how we forget the bad times of old and so maybe, are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. Reading matter for the bus trip is Robert Harris’ Munich - The Edge of War, by the way.
My parents and grandparents - and maybe every generation before had times when they were faced with the fear of war. Apart from the eighties, when we all expected to survive a nuclear holocaust by hiding under the stairs and eating tinned food, (what were we like), this post war generation in much of the UK hasn’t had to cope with this. We saw our lives getting better and better. Any conflict always seemed very far away - although the horrors of Bosnia were not that much further away than Rome, southern Spain, and closer still than Greece.
The horrors of Ukraine feel close. Every hour of the day we are hearing of apalling attrocities. The unimaginable made concrete on an hourly basis on the radio and TV. And a reminder maybe that there was something worse than what we all went through with Covid. At least then we had some level of control - if we followed the rules.
So ... today, with the sky blue, and the bright yellow sunshine, and a nip in the air regardless … it’s a day for counting your blessings and finding the many reasons to be thankful.
Planning to swing by the cheese shop in Menai Bridge to buy elements for a picnic, head to the beach, and hike home.
Later - and to be honest, all this week - likely to be eating Ukrainian Borscht. I can’t seem to cook for one.
Borscht - soup heavy on the beetroot - is widespread in eastern Europe. What makes Ukrainian Borscht different, I understand, is the addition of meat.
Anyhow, my recipe … all into the slow cooker … ingredients as follows.
Dice and fry some potatoes, beetroot, carrot and parsnip and onion just to give it a little more flavour, although it could all go into the pot as it is. Chop some garlic.
Into the slow cooker with some tomato paste, butter, and vinegar or red wine, and a stock of some sort. I made one up from some Miso paste.
Cook slowly.
Serve with some creme fraiche and fried diced chorizo.
Eat while counting one’s blessings.
R.
