We are learning a new vocabulary and I don’t like it!

The year 2020 will go down in the history books and not in a happy way.  We are learning a whole new vocabulary and completely changing our way of life.  Given our seemingly advanced age (I don’t feel very old inside) we have been “socially distancing” for about two weeks. The only time we leave the house is to go for a walk – we are fortunate to live in suburbia where and we are seeing very few people and if we do we are all being very polite and giving each other a wide berth.

No one comes into the house. We can go to the pharmacy and for occasional food shopping. The delivery services are fully booked and are not taking on new customers.  Our weekly vegetable delivery from which you could pick what you wanted has changed to a set box – this will stop me from cooking the same things over and over again. We have adequate supplies.

The pubs and restaurants have been closed by the government and many department and other stores have closed: still there are people who don’t feel that any of this applies to them – some of the parks were very crowded today – children still going on play dates and older people “just popping in” to the neighbour.

I suppose the next stage will be lockdown…

I am not going stir crazy – I have TV to watch, books to read and music to listen to.  We can FaceTime or talk to family and friends on the telephone but I feel some sadness knowing that I can’t just pop in and see my son and his family in London or get on a plane to see my daughter and her family in Switzerland. We flew to Switzerland at short notice once when our granddaughter went into hospital and have travelled to our son in the early hours of the morning when someone has similarly had to go to hospital. I know in the big picture of things this is minor and we speak every day – but it saddens me to know I can’t.  I suppose that is being a parent. 

My mother-in-law’s recipe book

My mother-in-law was a fabulous baker as were all her friends and relations.  Having grown up in Upington in the Northern Cape, on the edge of the Kalahari Desert life was quite spartan. She was born early in the 20^thcentury and grew up in what we would consider very primitive circumstances. The family owned the general store which dealt in everything from karakul skins to wedding dresses.  The farmers would run up a tab which they would pay when the harvest was in.

So whatever you wanted you had to make and they were all fabulous bakers.  She would say that she was a very plain cook – which meant that she took excellent fresh ingredients and didn’t mess them around – something I sometimes wish there was more of today.  

She and my father-in-law moved to Cape Town and that is where we used to visit them, and latterly, her, after he died.  No only were all the biscuit tins full of her baking, but all the family and friends would bring something and our children were in sugar heaven for the duration of our visit!

Over the years I used to copy out a recipe or two when we visited, with no real intention of baking anything – who had the time? When she died her recipe book vanished but reappeared a few years later.  When I retired from full time work I decided to have a go at baking some of her recipes and they have become firm family favourites.  One recipe I found in her book that had clearly been cut from a newspaper and which I don’t remember ever having was the one below. 

It has been a great success with grandchildren and friends alike. I have all these things in my store-cupboard but then I do bake rather more than my waistline can take. (g = grams; ml = Millilitre)

Yumski Bars

150 g butter                          150 g sugar

25 ml golden syrup               150 rolled oats

150 g self raising flour    

3 ml bicarbonate of soda

Makes about 32.  Slowly melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan.  Stir in flour mixed with oats and bicarb and beat well.  Spread into a lined 23 x 33 cm swiss roll tin and bake at 180C for 15 minutes.

Topping

100 g dark chocolate           50 g butter

60 ml golden syrup              50 g plain flour

Over a low heat melt the chocolate with the butter and syrup. Stir in the flour and spread carefully over the biscuit base.  Bake for a further 10 – 15 minutes or until bubbling.   Cool in the tin for a few minutes then mark into bars.  When firm enough move to a rack to cool.

Irrational behaviour in times of stress

When I grew up in Johannesburg the car was always kept full of petrol.  My father was a surgeon and he never knew when he might be called out and where he would have to go. Fuel efficiency wasn’t that great then either.

I cannot bear to let my fuel level go much below half (Number One Husband waits until the gauge is on the red) and for absolutely no good reason I went to fill up a couple of days ago.  Don't know where I think I will be driving but rationality had nothing to do with it.

I came to live in London when we married and then in 1970 we decided to go back to Johannesburg for family reasons. Going back to Johannesburg wasn’t that stressful – we had few possessions and Number One Daughter was a baby – and after all I was going “home”.  Number One Husband had a job to go back to as well.

By 1976 it was time to return to London and we did so the following year.  When we returned to London it was very different – family and friends were gradually leaving and spreading out all over the world. We had two children and my mother was going to follow once we were settled and also spend time with my sister in the USA.

There was great uncertainty in terms of jobs and schools and where we would live. I did some vaguely sensible things such as buying underwear, t-shirts etc for the children for a couple of years and one hundred pairs of tights for myself (they were incredibly cheap!) 

The one action that was completely irrational sticks in my mind:  on the day the packers came I suddenly felt the need for a wicker basket.  I still have it and I use it for storage – but I could have lived without it. Still not sure what it represented……

First embarrass your children….

When both my children were at university, Number One Daughter developed chicken pox.  I tasked Number One Son with doing food shopping for her and delivering it.  This he dutifully did, leaving it on the doorstep and crossing the road to wave at her when she picked it up. We laughed about it at the time – not so funny now.

Daughter lives abroad so can only offer advice (and plenty of it) but Son phoned to see if there was anything we needed. We haven’t stockpiled but having never quite got used to catering for a household of two we have plenty – especially as we won’t be doing any entertaining. However, today his sons have been sent home from boarding school as a housemate has tested positive for the virus – the whole household is socially distancing as well. I have volunteered my services to deliver stuff (driving in my car, no passenger, only I travel in it) and leaving it on the doorstep and running across the road to wave…..

Grandmothers don’t know everything….

I am an experienced grandmother: I know important things such as how to make Barbie cakes and favourite biscuits; tell embarrassing stories about their parents and read the same Mr Men books over and over again. I provided rescue monkey when teddy had been forgotten for a sleepover and especially “Grandma’s house, Grandma’s rules”.  That applies to sitting properly at the table as well as not having to finish your broccoli in order to have ice cream….

When the Corona virus advice started to come in I was resistant to changing behaviour. My adult children started to nag: we have an epidemiologist in the family and I am conditioned to believe evidence rather than anecdote so we reluctantly caved in. By the time the UK government recommended “social distancing” we were ready for it.  

Never mind pandemic, pandemonium ensued around us. People were bulk-buying toilet paper. As far as I am aware diarrhoea is not a consequence of the disease.  However I do realise that in a situation where we have no control (!) to be able to control something ticks a box. We always need toilet paper, it doesn’t date or go off – but the supermarkets can’t keep up with supply. There have been scenes in the supermarkets reminiscent of the first day of the summer sales. 

Some pharmacies have been charging extortionate prices for disinfectant hand gel. We are going to move to another pharmacy when all this is over as the one we usually use is doing this – an increase in price during a shortage I can understand but almost ten times? I have half a dozen bottles of barely used hand gel because every time we go away I forget to take it and buy a bottle at the airport. 

And then there’s soap - I confess I am a hoarder. A French market visits our area every quarter and I am always tempted by the lovely fragranced soaps. They are scattered around in drawers and on shelves and in wardrobes. Perhaps time to repurpose.

Wash your hands!

One is an anecdote, two is evidence…..

This was said in jest by a scientist – it is of course rubbish. This is my anecdote but the evidence is there already.

The High Street is struggling (evidenced by economic data); retail stores are struggling – even John Lewis is reporting falling sales and possibly even ditching the staff (partner) bonus.  I try to support local shops where possible – mostly buying meat from a butcher, sometimes fish from a fishmonger and fruit and vegetables from a box scheme or from a local shop – NOT packed in plastic. I use the local hardware shop if I can and the “open all hours” corner shop despite the Sainsburys and Waitrose “local” shops that have opened nearby.

It is no surprise that the shops that are thriving are hairdressers, men’s barbers, nail salons and cafes. You can’t order the former online and if you want a coffee and a sandwich you are hardly likely to go the home delivery route. Additionally, because we are in London we also have a wide variety of local food shops – one of which is open 24/7 including Christmas. You can buy almost any food – Polish, Turkish, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern and advice on cooking doesn’t cost extra!

The common thread is service and when service fails there is nothing else.  I needed to buy a small coffee grinder.  It was only a click away on Amazon to be delivered the next day. For 5% more I could buy it at John Lewis. I went to the nearest John Lewis, wandered around until I found the one I wanted. It was on display – there were no boxed ones in view.  With difficulty I found a salesperson, already serving a customer, who told me that someone would “be available soon”.  After eight minutes I left.  

Had someone become available it would have taken a few minutes for them to establish whether there was one in the store-room and then minutes more for it to reach the sales floor or the pick-up location: they could obtain it from another branch or I could order it online from them and go back and collect it on another day. It would therefore be a minimum of fifteen minutes if available.  Dear reader – I opened my phone, clicked on Amazon and it will be here tomorrow.  

To further infuriate me they would have either stuck a piece of tape across the box to show I had paid or asked me to pay for a plastic carrier bag. Paper bags are easily recycled but not available. Why? (I carry my own bags anyway but this still annoys me!) I know that Amazon tends to over-pack but it is usually cardboard which goes in my recycling.

Across the divide - mistrust, the Unions, Labour and an immigrant's story

There’s a song in the musical Oklahoma! titled, “The farmer and the cowman should be friends”.  I had no idea when I first saw the show of the antipathy between the ranchers and the cattlemen and while the lyrics ostensibly say they should be friends, it still highlights the distrust between the two groups. 

It may be too big a leap to write about the relationship between employers and the trade unions: most of the time they rub along reasonably amicably and it is only now and then that the relationship descends into acrimony – thankfully less often than it used to be.  

I have spent a bit of time recently sorting through some old papers as you will have seen from an earlier blog.  I have written a bit about my maternal grandfather’s military service in WWI but this is about his career starting as a craftsman and a trade union member and ending as the Chief Executive of a furniture factory and retail stores – and his changing relationship with the trade union movement.

He trained as a cabinet-maker in the East End of London before the war. His father was a cabinet-maker before him, no doubt training in Poland from where he emigrated in the 1890s.

Grandfather was a member of the Labour Union – it was then the “National Amalgamated Furnishing Trades Association” and he was a member of the East London United Branch.  The motto (I suppose it would now be a ‘mission statement’) was “Unity is strength” “Strength united is stronger”.  (Through a series of mergers, this is now part of the GMB.)

In the early 1920s, when my mother was a baby they decided to emigrate to South Africa and my grandfather was duly signed off from the Union “having paid all dues and demands”.

I know that he obtained employment in Johannesburg as a cabinet-maker as I have a reference provided by an employer.  How he transitioned from craftsman to entrepreneur I have no idea but I do know that he always had good relationships with the Unions and was highly respected in the trade.

One of the documents in the pile is a letter written by I assume the leader of (the South African) Federation of Furniture and Allied Trade Union offering apologies for not being able to attend my grandfather’s retirement reception. It is a very moving letter for a granddaughter to read – especially in the adversarial, aggressive and sometimes poisonous environment we live in today. 

As a Union man and a Labour supporter he would have been horrified at today’s betrayal of the Jewish community evidenced by the upsurge of anti-semitism from the left of the Labour party.

The history of my grandfather, his Polish parents and the rest of the family highlight the significant contribution made by immigrants, in this case Jewish immigrants, to the societies into which they move.  Of the eleven children there were several successful entrepreneurs, one corporate bigwig (in Canada) and Professor of Applied mathematics in the USA. 

They all made their way in the world. Immigrants are ambitious and resilient you see. 

I attach a copy of the letter.