people – Page 10 – The Magic Roundabout

Moving On

Sitting by the window, she allowed her mind to wander. She found her thoughts filled with nostalgic memories, and the dreary look of the early winter garden did nothing to cheer her mood. She loved the crisp winter days, but this bleak, still, grey weather made her miserable. She remembered the day over 23 years ago, when she had brought him home from the hospital – a beautiful, big, blonde baby boy. How the years have flown, she mused. No longer so blonde and the baby fat all gone, he had become a good looking young man with light brown hair. A fledgling who had left the nest to try spreading his wings. She was the last person to think of clipping those wings. She had encouraged the move, knowing the importance to their relationship of letting go. Possessive mother was not part of her makeup.

She loved him dearly, but the past few months had been fraught with frustrations on her side. She had begun to feel used, and somewhat abused by his apparent selfishness. Passing his open door and viewing the mess within had made her fight to control her anger. She knew this was all a part of the cycle – outgrowing the family home and no longer having any regard for family rules. Shouting didn’t help matters. It just caused her to feel exhausted and nothing was gained. Finally, he mentioned his hopes of getting a flat of his own to rent. All of a sudden there seemed to be a bright light at the end of the tunnel! Could it be possible that, before those men in white coats came to take her away, her sanity would be saved?

He had been an easy child with a good sense of humour. The teenage years had often proved to be challenging, as any confrontation seemed to end with the slamming of doors and the threat of running away. She blamed this behaviour on his father’s genes! She took the credit for his love of socialising and his sharp wit. Funny how easy it is to pass the buck for one’s children’s shortcomings! She was proud of his accomplishments. He had worked hard for the past five years and was beginning to find his feet. Soon he would be able to consider making a down payment of a home of his own. No doubt marriage would be the next big step. The cycle would start all over again with the birth of his first child, just as it had the day he was born.

She had to force herself not to feel depressed. After all, this was the beginning of his true independence, so why was she feeling sorry for herself? For the first time in years, she had a room to pursue her arts and crafts and how she had yearned for that moment! It must be the weather that was making her feel down. Exercise would do the trick. She dragged herself from her thoughts and started changing into a tracksuit. Running the dogs always managed to cheer her up.

Memories

Do you remember me, in the dark of the night,
When you lie awake,
Unable to sleep?
As you fight to escape your fears
And doubts,
Do you think of me?

When you wake to the sun’s embryonic rays,
Do you think of me?
As you face the onslaught of another day
Of struggles within and without,
Do your thoughts traverse the miles,
And do you miss me?

We were one, you and I
For many long years,
But now we are two, and divided.
Do you miss me?
As the shadows wane and evening draws nigh,
Do you remember me?

Judy Binns Nemeth

Adoption

In many ways, my mother has carried certain emotional scars with her throughout her life which are most certainly linked to her adoption at the age of 3 after her own mother died of toxaemia several days after giving birth to her second child, a baby boy. Due to financial difficulties my mother’s father asked his brother and his wife, who had no children of their own, to adopt my mother. The new baby was in turn adopted by his late wife’s family who never forgave themselves for not having adopted both children, but this was during the depression years in England and money was extremely scarce. For a little girl of 3 years old who was expecting her mummy to return from hospital with a new baby to suddenly never see her mother again, and having to go to live with an uncle and aunt, would more than likely necessitate the intervention of a child psychologist in today’s world.

Both her real and her adopted fathers died when my mother was 9 and 13 years old respectively. Her younger brother was more like a cousin than a sibling, and although they saw one another fairly regularly, they never lived together. In many ways over the years I have come to realise that my mother still carries the sadness and loss of not having her own mother around while she was growing up. She was made to feel that she had been given away like an unwanted possession, probably the words of an unthinking relative at the time. The difference between this situation and other adoptions was that there was always contact with her extended family whilst she was growing up so she wasn’t left wondering who she was.

Having read many case studies, watched a lot of documentaries regarding adoption and knowing people who are adopted or who have adopted children, there appear to be some factors which are a common denominator in cases of adoption. Feelings of being unworthy and unwanted, as well as needing to know who one’s birth mother was seem to be the golden thread linking many adoption stories. It is a basic human need to know where we come from, and who we are and, if a child has been adopted and only finds out by chance that the people they know as their parents are in fact their adopted parents, the results can be devastating.

With changing attitudes nowadays, at least in Western societies, it is common to let a child know, as soon as they are old enough to understand, that they were “chosen” and therefore “special” and it was because the birth mother was not able to care for the baby herself that she had to make the extremely difficult decision to give the baby up for adoption. Where a mother died in childbirth, and a father was unable to care for the baby, the emotions felt by the adoptee may be more feelings of sadness and loss and less of abandonment. Sometimes it seems that this need to begin the search for the real parents raises its head, either during late adolescence or once the adoptees themselves become parents. It would appear that the desire to search for one’s birth mother is far more common than a need to know who one’s father is. Obviously this is a generalisation, but does seem very often to be the case.

The laws in many countries have been relaxed regarding adoption, and nowadays it seems to be quite common for adopted children to gain access to the names of their birth mother through the adoption agency in order to try to contact her. Many times the birth mother has had some contact with the adoptive parents, and has even received photos of the child she had to give up. Years ago this was totally taboo and, in the case of single mothers, babies were literally wrenched out of their arms at around 6 weeks of age and handed over to the new parents. The heartbreak felt by the girl/woman having to give up her baby to strangers would seem to be a pain which often never heals. The memory of that day would be likely to stay with her for the rest of her life.

The adopted parents must go through really tough times when their child decides to investigate and find their blood relatives. It takes a very strong relationship to be able to face the fact that you may be losing your child to strangers who just happen to be linked by DNA. Counselling seems to be the way to go when an adopted child decides to contact a biological parent, as often there is a degree of disappointment, anger and distress once the meeting takes place. Depending on the circumstances surrounding the adoption it may result in the biological mother refusing to meet her child. This could be due to the pregnancy having been the result of rape, or just the disgrace of an illegitimate birth and possibly never having revealed the fact to her current husband and other children.

I find adoption to be a very emotional and intense issue which cannot be taken lightly. For parents adopting a child of another culture, or ethnic group the issues are even more complicated. There needs to be a lot of support all round and honesty and family discussions would appear to be a critical factor. Care and love are the basis of a happy childhood but we humans remain creatures who have a need to know who we are, where we came from and what characteristics and potential health issues we may have inherited from our parents. When a baby or child is adopted by family or friends of the biological mother, there is likely to be adequate information available regarding her which could be a source of comfort as the child grows up and becomes curious about the family background.

Smoked Duck with Spicy Litchi and Szechuan pepper sauce

This recipe involves lightly smoking the duck breast after it has come out of the oven and is resting. Do not worry if you don’t have a smoking gun to smoke the duck, as the dish will still be delicious.

Ingredients

4 duck breasts, skin lightly scored
Cherrywood chips
Salt and pepper
Frozen/fresh lotus root slices
1 bunch bok choi
Vegetable oil for deep frying

Sauce

1tsp Szeschuan pepper
1tsp dried chilli flakes
1tsp cumin seeds
1tsp coriander seeds
1 lemongrass stem, white part only, coarsely chopped
2 small shallots
2 cloves garlic
2cm piece of ginger peeled
2 Tblsp chopped coriander stem
1 Tblsp chopped coriander leaves
525g tin litchis in Syrup
2tsp Fish Sauce
200 ml Chicken stock
2 Tblsp lemon juice
100ml coconut milk
2 Tblsp Peanut oil
Corn Starch

Rice

I cup white rice
1 can coconut milk
Water
Salt

Method

Turn oven on to 190deg C.
Begin by making the sauce.
Add Szechuan pepper, cumin, coriander seeds, chilli flakes, lemongrass, shallot, garlic, ginger, coriander stem and leaves, half of the tin of litchis and syrup, fish sauce and lemon juice to a food processor/blender and process for a few minutes until as smooth as possible.
Pass the sauce through a sieve to remove unprocessed pieces.
Heat the peanut oil in a pan and when hot add the sauce and fry for about a minute over a medium heat.
Add the rest of the litchi syrup, coconut milk and chicken stock and gently simmer the sauce until reduced by about half its volume – +/- 20 – 30 minutes.
Season (if necessary) and thicken sauce slightly with a little corn-starch added to a bit of water, and then stirred through the sauce.
Chop remaining litchis into chunks and add to sauce – heat through.
Set aside.

Lotus root

If frozen, thaw the lotus root and dry on kitchen towel.
Heat oil to 180deg C and fry lotus root in batches until golden brown.
Remove from oil.
Season with salt and set aside.

Rice

Cook the rice on the stove top or rice cooker, substituting the equivalent water, with the can of coconut milk.

Duck

Heat a non-stick pan over a medium heat and brown the duck skin side down until well browned and fat has rendered out +/- 5- 7 minutes. Take care not to burn.
Turn duck over and briefly brown remaining sides.
Transfer duck to an oven friendly pan and cook in the oven for about 6-7 minutes (this will produce duck which is still slightly pink in the middle). Cook longer if you want more well-done duck.
Remove duck and rest in a glass dish.
Cover dish with cling wrap and add Cherrywood smoke.
Seal dish and rest meat in the smoke for 3-4 minutes.

Bok Choi

Steam/boil Bok Choi until softened.
Set aside and keep warm.

To serve

Spoon warm sauce onto a plate.
Place bok choi leaves onto plate and top with coconut rice.
Slice the duck breast and lay on top of sauce
Top with crispy lotus root

Nice! and Tasty – Chris

Update and Comment January-10-2019

Memory has to be one of the strangest of cognitive functions. You only have to talk to any woman who has more than one child and she is bound to tell you that she totally forgot the hard work of giving birth until she went through it for the second time. It is probably nature’s way of preserving the human race.

Now, in a somewhat different vein, I need to tell you all about our current situation. It is almost 13 years since we last shared our home with a puppy and the memories are flooding back at an alarming rate. Having been given the very kind and thoughtful gift of a new canine addition by our offspring at Christmas, we took delivery of Kelly just in time for the New Year. She is a beautiful, very well bred German Shepherd pup who came from the same respected breeder as our late Rudie.

Kelly was the only one in her litter and, consequently, she has been “humanised” by the breeder and her family, since she had no siblings with whom to play. She has settled very well in our home and is delightful and cuddly if she is tired enough to lie down and relax or sleep. When awake she is a ball of energy (with sharp baby teeth that are quite lethal) exploring every nook and cranny to find things to chew or drag around and loves to race around the garden resembling a battery operated rabbit. No amount of doggy toys is enough to keep her occupied all the time. One thing for sure, 2019 is going to keep me on my toes, and the puppy socialisation and basic training courses are a necessity. I need advice on how to break a few bad habits such as “answering back” when chastised!

Having a dog which is potentially going to be very protective, it is essential that she has proper training as well as a good dog food whilst she is growing – a strain on the budget, but a necessity! She is on a Royal Canin puppy food now and will start her puppy socialisation classes in the near future. I will post some photos of our new addition soon – probably while she is having one of her naps!

Enough dog talk and I hope I haven’t bored you to death. On a more intellectual note, you will see that the section labelled “artists” has begun with the showcasing of a very talented South African artist, Craig Banks. The plan is, every couple of weeks, to try to feature other people whose artistic works may be of interest to many of you. Only time will tell how well this section is received.

Below is just one of Craig’s works which are shown in the Artists’ Section of Guest Contributors.

Is Communication Technology a Time saver?

It wasn’t all that long ago that people sat down and wrote letters in order to keep in touch with family and friends, and even to conduct business. Provided that there was a reliable postal service, things seemed to work well and mail generally arrived timeously. That all changed with fax machines. Now a letter was typed on a computer or even a typewriter, and then sent via a fax machine to the recipient who also had to have access to their own fax machine. Business was speeded up as there was no longer the delay caused by postal deliveries. Nowadays very few people appear to be faxing as a form of doing business as e-mailing has become the medium of choice for most of us.

With the advent of mobile phones, landlines are often rarely used by individuals, although they are still a necessity in many business organisations. Looking back over the last few decades, there was a time when even having a home telephone was deemed a luxury. Many people had to make do with using public telephone boxes and putting the required number of coins into the slot provided in order to place a call. There are young people today who may never have seen one of these, let alone used one.

The benefit of using a mobile phone is that one is able to make and receive calls wherever one may be. No longer is it necessary to be in an office or at home in order to get in touch with people. This is rather a double edged sword, as there is no escaping being called by clients, any time of the day or night, unless the phone has been turned off. A big advantage, however, is that it is possible in many instances to contact one’s doctor, if the number has been made available to patients, in a medical emergency situation, outside of specified surgery hours. Other situations where mobiles are invaluable are when one has burst water pipes, or burnt out gate motors, where the specific expert needs to be called for help and is contactable on their mobile.

Having so many opportunities at our fingertips to communicate with one another, why is it that we are always complaining about not having enough time? Just looking at the whole scenario of everyone having a mobile phone, often an I-pad and a laptop, is it perhaps that all these modern gadgets have a tendency to become time wasters. One only has to look around to see that the majority of people, regardless of age, are carrying their mobile device with them wherever they go. Therefore, it is very tempting to constantly be checking for messages or interesting gossip on facebook instead of getting on with the job at hand. It would be interesting to monitor just how many working hours are wasted due to employees spending time on their phones instead of doing the job for which they are employed?

Many of us easily become addicted to all sorts of things – food, alcohol, exercise and nowadays, the internet and social media. Downloading games onto one’s mobile seems like fun, but it’s quite frightening how, sitting playing casino slots, or one of the many more challenging brain testers, the time just flies by. So, all things considered, was the pace of life actually slower in bygone days when people used old style forms of communication, and are we all perhaps guilty of wasting precious minutes in the way in which we are using the so-called time saving devices. Makes one wonder.

Craig Banks – artist

I am pleased to introduce my first Artist contributor, Craig Banks.

In his Own words:

My name is Craig Banks and I am a pencil portrait artist who grew up in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, and my art has always been a great support for me during challenging times. I am completely self-taught, and my style is 100% my own. I began practicing and developing my sketching skills while dabbling in other mediums such as acrylic and charcoal. It’s been a long road but I’m happy to say I’ve reached a point where my art always keeps me busy.

I revel in imperfections, as these imperfections slowly bring my subjects to life. I work from supplied photos and I get my inspiration from walking around my neighbourhood and observing the people I see. The positive responses which I get from my varied clients when they see the results of my work, are truly rewarding. A highlight of my career was to have my art works exhibited at the South African Hall of Fame at sun City.

My goal, professionally, would be to become a full-time portrait artist and be featured in international galleries, or at the very least, to work in a gallery and look at paintings all day long, as at present I hold down a full-time day job.

(If you’re in windows click on picture to enlarge – Thereafter you can go forwards or backwards.)

Arts and Crafts

This section of the guest contributors will consist of the work of Artists, Craftsmen (and women) and possibly interesting hobbyists. I am starting off with a number of artists, who have all been enrolled in Staedtler’s ambassador program. Sometime in the future, I will quite likely expand this section to artists who are not necessarily in this program.

I thank the management of Staedtler South Africa for allowing me to showcase the works of the Artists enrolled in their artistic ambassador program in South Africa. This program has 3 progressive levels of recognition for these artists, whereby they are supplied with relative materials and their work given exposure in order to support them in their endeavours to pursue their art and talent. Such exposure is ensured by featuring the ambassadors in Staedtler’s quarterly on line publication called; “MARS arts, crafts and design”. I also thank “Trend Forward”, the editors and compilers of Mars Magazine, for facilitating my involvement in this exciting venture. To view Mars magazine go to; https://issuu.com/marsmag

New Year 2019

Regardless of the country in which you live, if you are reading my blog right now you are possibly making plans to celebrate the end of 2018 and the start of a New Year, with all its promises.

We humans seem to have the knack of facing the New Year with optimism time and time again. It is this hope and positivity when thinking about the year ahead that keeps us going, despite any hardships and sadness that we may have had to endure during the past year. It’s just as well that we are often able to start the New Year with enthusiasm and a certain amount of excitement at what the coming year will bring.

With the world having become so very much smaller due to technology, one is able to watch people in all different countries celebrating the arrival of the New Year. One can begin by watching magnificent firework displays in cities such as Sydney, Australia, or Auckland, New Zealand and then travelling to Africa and watching festivities taking place in Cape Town. Two hours later, the crowds around Trafalgar Square in London, despite the cold, are always up for a rip roaring New Year’s Eve party – even going so far as to jump into the freezing fountain (obviously alcohol fuelled!) Firework displays along the banks of the River Thames are also par for the course.

Times Square in New York is among the last cities to celebrate the arrival of the New Year (obviously this depends on which continent one is living when making the comparisons) and the freezing cold weather seems to do nothing to dampen the enthusiasm for being part of the activities. Similarities do seem to exist in Western societies when it comes to the New Year celebrations. Counting down the minutes to 12 midnight, letting off fireworks, kissing those nearby (!) and toasting one another with glasses of bubbly – all these are well known to many of us.

The singing of Auld Lang Syne (composed by Robert Burnes) is, for many traditionalists, an absolute necessity at the start of the New Year. However, if one were to actually celebrate New Year in Scotland things could be quite different. The Scots celebrate Hogmanay (as opposed to New Year) and for them the traditions include the “first foot”. This has to be a dark haired man bringing with him a piece of coal and other items such as some shortbread, and a “wee dram of Whisky” entering one’s home at the stroke of midnight, or just after, in order to ensure good health and prosperity for the coming year.

Many of us have good and maybe not so good memories of New Year’s Eve celebrations over the years. Waking up on 1 January can be a painful experience due to the night before. There are parties which may have been well worth the headaches of the morning after, while others are best forgotten. With drinking and driving laws in most countries these days, many choose to stay at home on 31 December and watch television, or have a special meal in an attempt to stay awake long enough to toast the arrival of the New Year with a glass of champagne.

Here’s hoping that 2019 worldwide is a less traumatic and troubled year than many of the more recent ones have proved to be. To anyone who is reading this, my wish is that you will have a wonderful start to the New Year.

New Year Cheer 300x300 236477596 — **CHEERS**

Update and Comments: December 28, 2018

I cannot believe that it is over two weeks since my last update and comment! These public holidays which are accompanied by frenetic activities such as cooking, baking, wrapping gifts and spending time with family and friends tend to result in my getting all mixed up regarding the days of the week. Anyway, another Christmas Day has come and gone and a great time was had by all and now it’s time for a quick update!

As promised, I have inserted a photograph in the about page, and I have also created the contact page. Furthermore, the “Guest Contributor” section has been started with a hobbyist chef and his recipes. I am planning that, over the next few days, I will be starting to publish the first of several articles on local South African artists highlighting some of their work. This is all thanks to the kind co-operation of the Staedtler Company in South Africa and their extremely informative magazine, “MARS arts crafts and design”. More information will be given to you under the umbrella of “Artists”. Suffice to say that I hope you will find this section of great interest.

Since having to say goodbye to our dear Rudie, I have been in touch with the well respected breeder from whom we purchased him almost 13 years ago, and it seems very likely that soon we will be welcoming a new German Shepherd pup into our home. I will be giving you more info (for those of you who, like myself, are dog lovers) regular updates on this development.

Meantime, as we all recover from an overload of food, alcohol (if one does imbibe), people and end of year stress, I will just say that I truly hope that we can share a lot of thoughts, ideas and useful information in 2019.

Once again, that’s all for now and see you on the Magic Roundabout!