Most of the time I feel woefully inadequate as a mother but every now and then, like today, I come very close to getting it right. Today my boys and I experienced a late Autumn day to its fullest. From making and then eating sticky date pudding together when they got home from school (see recipe April 28),

to walking with our empty jar to the health food shop where THEY made their very own peanut butter for the first time,

to raking up all the leaves on the footpath outside our house (to make compost for our garden – my personal action for today because I’ve never done this before and because it involves creating ‘new soil’ to grow food)

to taking the seeds out of the scarlet runner bean and blue lake beanpods we collected canadian propecia rx to plant next spring,

& to eating freshly harvested broccoli, beans, zucchini, tomatoes and potatoes out of our own garden for dinner.

Yes, today we experienced the perfect late Autumn afternoon – why then did I find it so disturbing to find the garden scattered with spring jonquils?

 

Oh well … Keep Calm and Carry On …

For dinner I made another delicious vegetarian meal in anticipation of the broadbean crop I’m going to have in a couple of months time … with a bit of luck I’ll also be making the gnocchi with my own potatoes:

Broadbeans and Gnocchi

This is a very quick and easy meal

Approximately 1/2 cup broadbeans, 1/2 cup of cream and 1/2 cup of potato gnocchi per person (depending on how hungry you are)

Slowly cook the broadbeans (I used frozen ones because it’s a bit early yet for fresh) in the cream with salt and pepper to taste, until the cream begins to reduce. Add chopped sage (3-4 leaves per person to taste) and continue cooking. Meanwhile drop gnocchi into boiling water. As soon as the gnocchi is cooked and drained pour broadbean sauce over, sprinkle with grated parmesan and garnish with a twig of sage. YUM.

In light of the Royal visit to George Bush this week I decided that my political action for today would be to write to the Queen:

Queen Elizabeth & Prince Philip

Buckingham Palace

London SW1A 1AA

United Kingdom

Your Majesty,

It is with great hope that I have been following reports in the media of your visit to the United States. As an Al Gore trainee in Australia, and as a mother of twin boys who has recently devoted her life to raising awareness of global warming, I have been feeling convinced that the purpose of your visit was to indicate to Mr Bush the urgency of the need for his country to act immediately to sign Kyoto and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Having been a brownie, a girl guide, a patrol leader, a lefty and a ranger I was also particularly pleased yesterday to be able to give a presentation of The Inconvenient Truth slide show presentation to the Annual General Meeting of the Trefoil Guild of the Girl Guides. In this, the Centenary year of guiding, it dawned on me that guiding would have a profound role to play in raising awareness and sharing with our young people the skills and attitudes they are going to need to ready themselves for what the future is likely to bring as a result of the warming that will now inevitably occur.

The Guiding movement, with its history, with your sponsorship and with its motto:

Be Prepared

could be the perfect vehicle to galvanize the world to act – through its young people!

As I enjoy the harvest from my autumn garden I’m also disturbed by the fact that this same garden is currently full of jonquils ….

Thank you again for visiting Mr Bush

with gratitude,

Elisabeth Bastian

101 Wentworth St Blackheath. 2785.

PS. In Australia I am part of a group blog in which we’re taking a personal and a political action every day in our efforts to speed up action on climate change

www.cartooningschool.com.au/wordpress

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