To the thief who tried to take my money ...

Dear Thief
You know who you are, even though you probably do this so often you won't even remember my name. Well, let me remind you. I am the British tourist whose credit card you cloned when I paid in a restaurant in Berlin last week and used it in Russia to buy from an Italian website. I don't know whether you are the cheerful and friendly waitress (who I tipped generously for your excellent service), or whether you are another member of staff. Perhaps you are the owner of the establishment that boasted it had been in situ for 100 years. Perhaps you have no connection with that restaurant aside from having the opportunity to place something inside the card reader to copy my information (as my credit card company informs me you operate). Whatever, whoever you are you may have managed to inconvenience my entire family, who now have no credit cards for up to ten days. You may have forced us to rethink our activities in the lead-up to Christmas. You may have stopped me purchasing a limited-edition item I had been waiting weeks to buy. You have almost certainly landed us with the embarrassment of having to field calls from people who find that our payments have been refused. But you will not get our money. You may find that you do not even get your fraudulently-acquired goods because our credit card company spotted it very quickly.
You're probably wondering why I'm even bothering to write this. The simple answer is it makes me feel better. When I go to bed tonight, it'll calm me to know I've had my say, and I'll sleep well. I wonder how well you sleep at night?

Recipe for Scandinavian Christmas Vodka

In a complete change of tack from my usual blogging, here is a recipe for a lovely (and definitely alcoholic!) Christmastime drink. I have been making this with enthusiasm for several years around this time of year and consuming it during the Holidays with even greater enthusiasm! I recommend it as an accompaniment to pre-dinner nibbles - I'd choose blini and caviar! Enjoy and go steady - it's pretty potent stuff! Remember breathe OUT after swallowing unless you want, literally, to take your breath away

You will need:
700ml ordinary vodka (no need to buy the fancy stuff here)
2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
2 sticks of cinnamon
12 whole cloves
12 whole cardamon seeds
1 orange (you only need a strip of fresh peel - you can eat the rest!)
An empty one litre bottle or other glass container with a tight-fitting lid- use one with a wide neck it will make life easier later on and be sure it's been thoroughly cleaned
Empty bottles to decant finished liquor later on

Here's what you do:
Put the sugar, cinnamon, cloves and cardamon seeds into the clean container.
Pour the vodka on top of the sugar and spices.
Fasten tightly, shake thoroughly and leave in a cool place, such as a pantry, for two days, during which time you should shake the bottle several times.
At this point cut a long strip of orange zest, drop it into the mixture and leave for another 24 hours.
You can alter the flavour slightly either by infusing the spices for a few days longer or adding the orange zest along with the spices.
Strain the liquor and pour into the other empty bottle(s). Serve very chilled.
Skal!

Meme for Invisible illness week

National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week is held annually in September and is part of a worldwide effort to bring together people who live with invisible chronic illness and those who love them.

1. The illness I live with is: asthma
2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 2008_
3. But I had symptoms since: my teenage years.
4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: carrying my emergency medication everywhere I go and accepting that it is a dangerous illness
5. Most people assume: either that asthma is very minor, that it stops you doing anything interesting or active or that it is imminently fatal.
6. The hardest part about mornings are: sometimes I can be very chesty early on and you never quite know what the day will be like and everything takes a bit longer than I'd like!
7. My favorite medical TV show is: I don’t watch them!
8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is:medically speaking - my spacer which makes sure I get all my medication into my lungs. Otherwise my computer!
9. The hardest part about nights are: sleeping propped up enough not to start wheezing and having to give up my preferred habit of sleeping with an open window.
10. Each day I take: 1 pill & vitamins plus an inhaler twice a day every day and I always carry another, of different medication, at all times in case of an attack or increased symptoms.
11. Regarding alternative treatments I am trying to learn good breathing techniques.
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: invisible because I see so many people judging those with visible problems – I might lack understanding from others but at least I don’t suffer their assumptions!
13. Regarding working and career: I have a rewarding career which does not affect my illness
14. People would be surprised to know: that I concealed (even to myself to an extent) quite bad symptoms for a good couple of years
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: that while I have not had a really bad attack I have to live with the fact that asthma is serious and that people do die from it.
16 Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: be more active than before
17. The commercials about my illness: well, in the UK we don't really have commercials about illness!
18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: sleeping with the window open and carrying a tiny clutch!
19. It was really hard to have to give up: I'm lucky, apart from the window thing, I haven't (so far) had to give up much!
20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: gardening
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: walk through a field of flowers on a cold, windy day (most of my triggers in one go)
22. My illness has taught me: to appreciate good days, and that getting treatment is a bloomin' good idea!
23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: "oh, my friend/cousin/loved one died of an asthma attack" - really not helpful, you know?
24. But I love it when people: just take it in their stride and don't stare at me when I have to take my inhaler in public!
25. My favorite motto that gets me through tough times is: I didn't have one, so I just found this: "To live is not breathing it is action" Jean-Jacques Rousseau - it reminds me that, despite asthma, I still have a fulfilling and active life.
26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: don't panic, take care of your symptoms, be aware of what your lungs are telling you, ask for help if you need it, take your medication and carry on with the rest of your life!
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: that most people don't know anything about it!
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: give me a hug
29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: Just because we don't always show symptoms doesn't mean we are perfectly fine
30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: happy that you are interested and hopeful that you will think about all the people who may have an illness that you can't see

I've combined blogs!

Because the likelihood of me adding to the Derby Telegraph blog page is small at the present time, I have copied over (and pre-dated) blogs from that list to this one. Those blogs also appeared in the Derby Telegraph's print editions.

Please support Asthma UK's "Putting Asthma in the Limelight" Campaign

From 2 to 10 May Asthma UK is having a fundraising week - please take time to see whether there are any local fundraisers.
On Tuesday 5 May 2009 it is World Asthma Day. This year the focus is on children and young people with asthma.

I was one of the 40 percent of asthma sufferers diagnosed in adulthood - my diagnosis was last year. Although I’d guessed what might be wrong with me, I was a little afraid to find out. After all, having asthma puts limits on what you can do, right? Well, no actually! Having uncontrolled asthma is horrible, as I found out, and it’s quite risky too, but daily medication and a few sensible precautions have made all the difference.
I’m lucky because I don’t have severe symptoms. Since my diagnosis I feel healthier, happier, more active and have even discovered gardening! I know that my asthma won’t get in my way and that, as long as I take it seriously, it won’t define who I am.
1 million kids in the UK have asthma, but one third say they don’t know what to do if they have an attack. If this happens when they’re alone, or with someone who doesn’t know what to do, their attack may become more severe until they have to be hospitalised. Having an asthma attack, even a mild one is very scary because, although symptoms vary between individuals - wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and so on - you are effectively trying to breath in and out through a space that is only a fraction of the size it should be -imagine a drinking straw compared to a hosepipe!
This week’s fundraising is called “Putting Asthma in the Limelight” so that all kids with asthma know what to do in an attack and that more adults understand how they can recognise, and assist during, an asthma attack. If you do not know what to do in an asthma attack, please visit the Asthma UK website where you can find lots of important and useful information that might help you help someone else. Since there is a person with asthma in one in every five households in the UK you probably know someone with asthma.

You can also make a donation on the website and find out about other initiatives (such as the Kick Asthma Holidays for kids and the campaign to get the UK Government to supply asthma medication free of charge for those with long-term requirements).

Sometimes a pancake is just a pancake!

I had an email today - from Ocado as it happens- reminding me to "get everything you need for Pancake Day". Good advice, I thought, although since Shrove Tuesday has long been one of the highlights of my culinary year, I seldom forget. What I couldn't quite believe was the accompanying suggestion for 'ginger nut pancakes'. Now, believe me, I am the last person to call into question any recipe concocted by that doyenne of the culinary arts - Marguerite Patten - but tell me, just what do fancy, dancy, exotic crepes have to do with Shrove Tuesday? On any other day I might give them a try, but on Pancake Day?
In the UK we eat pancakes on that one day a year in recognition of the last day before Lent. In the olden days, when everyone was considered Christian (whether they wanted to be or not) the Church required that the six weeks of Lent (the 40 days not counting Sundays that lead up to Easter Sunday) was a time of abstinence. The point of the pancakes was to use up leftover fat and eggs that were forbidden during Lent. Simple pancakes are simple for a reason. OK, you might argue that few of the people who eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday are devoutly Christian, and that even fewer actually observe abstinence of any kind throughout Lent, therefore a bit of tinkering with tradition is just fine. Perhaps it is, but for me it's the continuation of tradition, the ritual if you like, that is so important. It just doesn't seem right - some things are just better left alone. We now live in a world where even hot cross buns are available year-round, and in a variety of flavours too – from traditional to chocolate chip. Cabdury’s Crème Eggs have been transformed into a chocolate bar and M & S have started selling mince pies that expire in mid-October! The thing is: once the tradition goes, so does the significance of these special foods. We all have access to all kinds of foodstuffs regardless of the local growing season, is it too much to ask that we hold on to some of our culinary heritage? This year I've decided enough is enough. There'll be only sugar and orange juice on my pancakes and absolutely no hot cross buns until Good Friday.
Somebody has to make a stand and it might as well be me!

New day, new start!

It all began with making marmalade. Well, actually it didn't - it began with the news that, along with a great many others, my services were no longer required. For the past few years I've been writing freelance and one of my regular customers has been my local newspaper. The writing, so to speak, had been on the wall for a while now. Many of us had been told to cut back on our submissions, full-time employees were being laid off - it was clearly only a matter of time. And sure enough, yesterday as it happens, the axe fell on my last remaining contribution. Now normally we writers - particularly the freelance ones - have fragile egos. Our professional 'worth' horribly yo-yoing from week to week but, given the times in which we live, and the cut-backs every industry seems to be struggling through, my ego has remained, more or less, intact. After all, it was one knock-back that was more of a redundancy than a rejection.
So, as I started to regroup I returned to my personal therapy of choice - cooking. Being a freelance writer means I'm used to the ebbs and floes of work, to the intensity of producing a book and the contrasting calm in between times. For me, it's time in the kitchen that fills those gaps and finds our pantry piled high with preserves, the freezer topped up with pies and the fridge laden with soups. But the thing about that kind of cooking is that it requires attention, it occupies your mind and body, it isn't particularly difficult, and it reaps wonderful, delicious rewards.
Of course all that stirring gives you time to think and, by the time I had finished over my cauldron (there is, after all, just a touch of magic in cooking!), I had put all the day's disappointment behind me and begun to see, not a loss or an end, but a new, fresh beginning. And jars and jars of marmalade!

Bag ladies and bus rage!

IT was in danger of turning into the bus journey from hell, several passengers glaring at each other, others quietly seething. Yet it had all started out so smoothly: a routine trip from the city centre to the suburbs; shoppers of all ages clutching their packages; a rare British sunny day, all was well with the world. Until, that is, an encounter between two of my fellow passengers.
The pleasant weather had brought out more Derbeians than usual at that time of day and the bus was almost full. Anxious to sit down as quickly as possible, one woman spotted an empty seat beside a window, just in front of me.
When I say empty, it was occupied by a huge paper bag; the kind you get from designer boutiques. It would certainly have been no burden for the person who had plopped it there to place it on her lap. Or at least you wouldn’t have thought so. As it happened, that person was a young lady, although there was nothing remotely ladylike about her reaction when the other passenger politely asked her to remove the bag so she might sit down.
She stared at the woman as if she’d just suggested she cut off her own arm, while, all around her, astonished passengers (some still waiting to sit down further along the bus) looked on.
Surely she wouldn’t refuse? Well, no, she didn’t; but only after an exaggerated roll of the eyes and an audible sigh did she theatrically stand up, lift the bag, move to the seat beside her and sit down with the bag on her lap.
By this time those waiting were getting more than a little impatient. They were also getting hot because the bus’s heating was switched on full blast, carbon footprint be damned, apparently.
As one male passenger was finally able to pass, he directed an extremely rude remark at the girl with the apparently immovable bag. Another female passenger, with whom he had now drawn level, assumed he was addressing her and turned to insult him back. Fortunately, for the remainder of the journey the pair limited themselves to exchanging angry glares.
As it turned out, the young lady with the bag hadn’t yet finished exercising her right to be stroppy. As we approached her stop, she stood, barked: “Getting off here!” at her neighbour and shoved her aside, accidentally whacking three or four people with her designer carrier on her way to the front.
Of course, selfishness is a sad trait in people of every generation and by no means only the preserve of teenagers. I’ve seen as many older people push in, or grumble about standing, as I have younger ones refuse to stand up.
I have to admit that I don’t automatically stand up for everyone. I like to think I’m pretty egalitarian and use a simple rule of thumb: if someone, whatever their age or their reason, is less able or more inconvenienced to stand than I am, then they are welcome to my seat. Otherwise I stay put. I don’t expect men to stand up for me, nor children for that matter. But I’m not insulted if they offer; and believe me I’ve been on the receiving end of that one.
Nor, should I come to be a hale and hearty pensioner, shall I complain when a teenager doesn’t jump to their feet for me. I have a feeling, though, that one young lady might.
Because, while most people are always polite, friendly and considerate of others – and we wouldn’t notice incidents like this if they weren’t – some people don’t give it a second thought. And that’s a shame because it’s those people we remember and by whom we judge everyone else of their generation.