Wheelchairs For Kids

is a charity which makes wheelchairs for children and sends them all over the world.

I was shown around their workshop yesterday with a group of friends and we are all in awe of what they do. Wheelchairs For Kids was started twenty years ago by the Rotary Club of Scarborough and is supported by The Christian Brothers. This charity makes wheelchairs specifically for children to World Health Organisation standards and sends them world wide to impoverished countries. These wheelchairs are adjustable and can be used for children aged up to fifteen. There are two other charities - one in Canada and another in the USA - which make wheelchairs for adults but this is the only one making wheelchairs for children.

The workshops in suburban Wangara are staffed entirely by volunteers, both men and women, many of whom are retired trades people. A few components are brought in - such as the frame and wheels  - but the bulk of them are made on site while others need to be modified or altered to fit the specific requirements of children. The volunteers include two occupational therapists and a physiotherapist and a large number of people who make knitted toys and crochet the rugs which are included with each boxed wheelchair. Each chair is put together, inspected and checked before it is dismantled and packed up for shipment.

In the twenty years since it started Wheelchairs For Kids has put together and sent out 40,000 wheelchairs and they have orders on their books to keep the workshop working at full capacity until April 2019. What an incredible achievement. There is a desperate need for wheelchairs for children worldwide and what these volunteers are doing is nothing short of inspiring.

If you are interested in finding out more or donating to Wheelchairs For Kids you can find out more about it here. They also have a Facebook page.

Things You Don't Expect

to find in the veggie patch in winter.




                                                


As you can see a couple of the zucchinis which should have died back quite a while ago have continued to fruit as have the beans. I'm not sure why this is happening given it's been a bit nippy but there you go. I'm not going to a look a gift zucchini or two in the mouth, am I.

Guess what we're having for lunch.

I Really Had No Choice. Honest.

I've been shopping. If you know anything about me you'll know that I really, really hate shopping for clothes or pretty much anything else now I come to think of it. I hear someone say 'retail therapy' and my immediate response is 'Are you mad?' For me shopping is something that has to be done, not a pleasure. I don't even window shop as a rule although I make exceptions for looking at - but not buying - jewellery and a fabric shop will get me in any time since it's impossible to have too big a patchwork stash.

The time comes, though, when however much I try to avoid it I'm forced to buy clothing and that's the point I was at on Saturday. I needed some tops to replace old ones being retired to around the house use, some shoes since the soles of my favourites were coming adrift and were quite beyond repair plus some warm pants and some gumboots for the garden.

So I hied me to several websites of stores near us and found the best range of what are now apparently called rain boots at Target. This worked well because the shopping centre where the nearest Target is has a large number of clothing and shoe stores so I could - with luck - get all my needs in one shopping trip. According to the website Target stocked no less than three different styles of rain boots in several colours including sensible matt black. Just what I wanted because this time I was going to be sensible. No more bright red or other multi coloured gardening boots for me. I was going to buy matt black. Not even going to  look at the others. No, sir, not me.

Once we hit the shops while Pisces was doing the grocery shop I was off to Target.  A couple of tops and some warm pants went into the basket and then I was on my way to the shoe section where I was disappointed to find a total of five pairs of boots - one black pair and four shiny red. Determined not to be seduced by red again - if you haven't seen my wardrobe I have to tell you that around three quarters of what's in there is red - I looked further along the aisles. Nope, not another rain boot in sight.

I didn't even have to pick up the black pair to know they were much too big and so was one of the red pairs. So I was down to three shiny red pairs - and ooh they were so pretty and they were all my size. Now someone else would probably have thought well, let's go to another shop, but I'm not that someone. I had the perfect excuse of shiny red boots that fitted and I wouldn't have to go shopping anywhere else. Woohoo! See I really did have no choice.

What a Difference a Storm Makes

Over the weekend we had a couple of glorious winter's days. Lots of sun and not too much wind tempted me out into the garden. Not that it takes all that much to tempt me into the garden you understand. Normally just a break in showers is enough but this time the weather was truly glorious so every time I took a break from writing I wandered outside and spent a bit of time doing some garden chores. On Saturday this included spraying the cabbage family for caterpillars - I go the non toxic route of BT, a naturally occurring bacteria that kills the little beasties but doesn't harm anything else. Now all I need is something similar to deal with the snails. I can see where they've been busily chomping but where they hide during the day still eludes me.

When Sunday proved equally lovely I splashed around a bit of liquid fertilser and scattered some NPK around among other things. Since I was by no means lavish with either of the fertilisers I wasn't expecting much to happen quickly or otherwise, just for the plants to keep on growing steadily so when I'd finished and tidied up I came inside thinking more about my story than plants. Then around midnight there was an almighty crash of thunder and the heavens opened.The heavy rain and thunder only lasted about twenty minutes then everything quietened down so I went back to sleep.

On Monday, apart from a quick morning check for storm damage and to see if the roof was intact - it was, phew - I wasn't even thinking about the garden until around midday when I was standing looking at the flower bed outside the family room and talking to Pisces while idly wondering if the daffodils were ever going to come up when I noticed something. Where on Saturday there hadn't been a sign of daffodil shoots now they were everywhere and most were around 3-5 centimetres tall. I hadn't put any fertiliser on that bed because I ran out - note to self get some more fertiliser ASAP - and there they were growing almost before my eyes. As well every leaf had turned brilliant green. Hmm, I thought,  as I headed out to the veggies. There wasn't a plant there that hadn't grown. The tiny carrot plants that were barely showing the day before were now now 3-4 centimetres high, the peas that had been sitting barely moving for days were well on their way up the trellis and the chard, kale and pak choi had nearly doubled in size.

Of course, some of this is down to the fertilser but most I suspect is due to the nitrogen brought by the storm. You don't have to be a gardener to notice how the plants green up after a storm - storms generate a lot of nitrogen in the form of nitrates that plants feast on. While I don't want regular storms with severe winds and damage like those we've had several times over the past month - hence the roof check - smaller ones like the latest with a brief flurry of light and sound and a short, heavy rain shower watering the garden as well as supplying it with nitrogen are very welcome as far as I'm concerned - even if they do send Puss under the bed in a panic.

What I've Been Reading: Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

For some reason I haven't been reading as much as I usually do. It's not at all unusual for me to get through five or six novels in a week normally but for a few months I haven't got to the library - or anywhere else much, truth be told. I've been struggling with health issues - just being sociable has seemed too hard for much of the time - and for some reason this affected my desire to read as well.

But a few weeks ago I was looking at various lists of prize winning books and wham I was on amazon.com and buying up ebooks. My To Be Read list is now bulging with potential goodies and here is a brief review of the first of those I have read recently.

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey was the winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2014. I picked it up without knowing anything about it. I hadn't read any reviews and I'm glad I hadn't because while there is much, well earned praise there's also a lot negativity which I don't think it deserves.

Personally I loved it. It's not a comfortable or easy book to read. Maud, the protagonist, has dementia and is convinced her friend, Elizabeth, is missing and that Elizabeth's son has something to do with her disappearance. The trouble is no-one will take her seriously as she tries to find out what has happened. Her dementia has affected her memory so in her search for Elizabeth she does the same thing over and over irritating people. She is patronised by those who should know better and eventually even forgets who her daughter and granddaughter are. There are a lot of questions raised about the treatment of the elderly as we hear Maud's story.

Intertwined with her present day confusion and memory loss but with the perfect clarity of a dementia sufferer Maud remembers all the details of her sister's mysterious disappearance in 1946 when she, Maud, was a schoolgirl. The disappearance of her sister has had long lasting effects and Maud's search for answers to both quests makes for a satisfying read. The author has tackled a difficult subject - the effects of dementia on the sufferer, the family and the way it's dealt with in the community as well as the lack of sympathy with which it is often perceived - skilfully and with compassion. Dementia is a terrible disease with its insidious, incremental theft of the personality of the sufferer and in this novel it is shown in all its cruelty.

When I did read the reviews later I found the mixed responses interesting. For some the end was unsatisfying and they found Maud's confusion, well, confusing but for me it follows the logic of a dementia sufferer. There are never going to be clear cut answers for Maud who is likely to  have forgotten what she finds out in a matter of minutes and to go back to her search for answers. I suspect this book is difficult for some of those who have no experience with dementia to grasp but for those of us who have watched a loved one decline with this disease it rings painfully true. I recommend it highly.

Garden Food

I love nothing so much as going out to the veggie garden and bringing in a basket of yumminess - and I didn't really expect yumminess to be a word. Turns out it is. Well, fancy that, as my grandmother used to say. Okay back to the subject which is veggie garden harvesting - and cooking, both of which are equally important after all.

So I currently have a glut of lettuces. This is because I let some go to seed  - I do this regularly with my veggies, either to collect the seeds to store or, as I did with these lettuces, to let them self seed - and they've come up all over the place in my veggie patch.

As you can see in the photo pretty much all the left hand corner is lettuce - plus a border of calendulas, which also self sow like crazy.

They're not the only volunteers. Most of the spring onions you can see have also planted themselves - and I'm very happy for them to do that. The only trouble is they're in something of a glut, too. What to do? Well I settled on pea and lettuce soup - had to buy the peas because mine aren't ready to pick yet but you can't have everything, can you.

I was sure I had a recipe for this many years ago but couldn't find it so I decided to put together my own based on the traditional French way cooking peas and lettuce together as a vegetable and it turned out to be very tasty.

This is what I did - and bear in mind I'm the kind of cook who for the most part doesn't measure much unless I'm baking so most of the measurements are by no means precise.

Lettuce leaves (the outer leaves are fine for this) sliced - about 8 cups in total

6 or so spring onions (you could use any kind of onion really) sliced

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped

about 30 grs butter

1 kg frozen peas

7-8 cups vegetable stock (I made it with a couple of cubes)

⅔ cup milk powder (I used this because I was short of fresh but you could use 2 cups of fresh milk instead and adjust the amount of other liquid accordingly.)

3-4 sprigs of mint

Black pepper

In a large pot melt the butter and sauté the onions and garlic until soft but not brown. Add the lettuce and cook until soft and wilted. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Add the peas and mint and simmer until the peas are soft. Remove from the heat and add a generous grind of black pepper and the milk powder. Blend to a purée and adjust seasoning to taste. I served it with a sizeable dollop of Greek yoghurt but you could use crème fraîche or cream I guess.

Note: This is pretty thick - because that's the way we like our soup - and made around eight large  servings but you could add more stock or milk to thin it down a bit.

Note: I didn't use salt because the stock cubes tend to be salty and I rarely cook with salt anyway.

A Few Feel Good Moments

Well, they are for me.

Tortoises are seriously amazing - and cute. Don't forget cute. Thanks to my friend, Sarah, for pointing me in this direction.

A boy shows his Dad how to build a Leonardo da Vinci bridge.

A baby elephant enjoying a mud slide.