The Chutney Mafia

I believe that my grandmother houses the national chutney collection. She has a whole shed full of chutney. I’ve often wondered how this came to pass.

I now think I know- its the chutney mafia. These misguided woman believe in waste not want not. The dovote time and energy to their gardens and when (inevtiably) the effort pays off they have a glut of produce (apple, carrot, apricot, green tomatoes, beetroot). It can’t be wasted it must be ‘enjoyed’. So they make chutney…nobody really requires 15 jars of chutney so they give some to a friend who returns the favour….

Its not just chutney- this year alone I’ve been given rhubarb, various salad, rocket, pumkin plants, lovage, lemon balm, violets….The rhubarb comes with suggestions on what to do with rhubarb…i won’t add my own here on grounds of decency…but consider this when gardening don’t grow things that you don’t want.

 

Glastonbury Festival (and time out)

Recently I’ve had a fair bit of time out from being a mum. I’ve loved it- I feel like a different person. First I went to paris on Eurostar for a long weekend and was very arty. Then I had a staff conference and I’ve just come back from Glastonbury. 

I’ve just come back from Glastonbury festival. It was fantastic….we saw some great things. Wandered round looked at things…

 Jay Z was really good fun- because he worked really hard with the crowd.. Fat Boy Slim was great fun although I did think he was a smug bastard. He came on with a lap top- shouted 1234  occasionally  bit of pretend running…a smug grin. Whats so cool?? The crowd went wild- actually the crowd went wild before he really started- he tried to tease us but we went wild anyway. I loved it! Leonard Cohen was boring…He was very good and I like him more than I did before however…he was dull. Although given that he famously became an alcoholic to overcome stage fright it seems mean to say- he’s not a natural performer….

 Looking at things was cool- lots of crazy circus acts; green technology; food; hippy junk….insane people. We were especially taken with a 50 year old wearing a triathlon suit; fairy wings and dancing to Mr Cohen.

 Lots of people had children with them; lucky not us! It looked really hard work!

 The walking; all day walking and standing…I was exhausted and didn’t go as wild as I wanted! On Sunday I set out to get pissed but after 2 pints of home brew peasant cider (lovely) and some apple brandy I went on the gyroscope and to be honest couldn’t drink anymore! I had to lay down for several hours…

 The gyroscope was soo cool- like floating. I loved being apple to move my body so fluidly and easily….  

The best thing was spending time with my wonderful husband when we didn’t have to think about work, family, responsibilities. We were just having fun together….

The purpose of complimentary medicine

Parts of my family are very committed to complimentary medicine. My step-mother is a body harmony therapist (which I believe is a bit like the laying on of hands but without touching). At one point she was expelled from the body harmony movement for touching*. As a child rescue remedy, belladonna and arnica were companions of our childhood illnesses.

 

As an adult I’ve sort out alternative therapists on a number of occasions- when my son was young and wouldn’t sleep I saw a homeopath. When I couldn’t catch up with my energy I saw a natropath. On both occasions the most useful aspect of the treatment was talking through the problems and looking at factors that could effect the issues under discussion (my son had a slight dairy sensitivity) and getting ‘common sense’ advice (take iron). In neither case was there any suggestion that this was instead of seeing a doctor. I suppose I’ve seen it more as away of tapping onto community knowledge since we’ve experienced the loss of communities.

 

Recently I had an interesting experience- I saw the school doctor for my son. It was similar to be experience of alternative therapies- we spent an hour talking about him- she played some games to test cooridination, tested his eye sight etc. The time taken gave her the opportunity to take an all round view. The conclusion reached was that we should monitor the situation and not take action yet.  Another unrelated issue was idenitified through discussions that needs to be investigated. When I visited my GP the diagnosis was that he should be referred to a speech therapist; the GP made this diagnosis without my son saying anything…

 

Which brings me to me central point; complimentary medicines can have an important part to play in dispensing common sense advice and encouraging a patient to look at his/her behaviour to identify the causes of the problem. However this isn’t only something that can happen in that environment….

 

Complimentary therapists should also be encouraged to be honest about their skills and capabilities- it clearly isn’t an alternative to scientific medicine and shouldn’t exclude scientific medicine.

 

 

*she had a relationship with a patient 15 years her junior and rather gorgeous; the expulsion may have been because he was a patient or because she stole him from another body harmony teacher…(and yes life is that predictable)