Organic-Ally

I went to bed last night thinking about how unsustainable the current consumer-driven economy is and woke up this morning to read: 90% underground water in China polluted . Cities in northern China have been the most polluted with increasingly more pollutants, causing economic losses worth of [sic] dozens of billions of US dollars.  When I say (in many places in this blog and on Organic-Ally ) that buying 'cheap' has its long-term repercussions, readers might think that I am a snob. So perhaps I should change my tune and say 'cheap' is not sustainable.  Just before Christmas British fishermen were told that their quota of cod that could be landed is to be reduced by 5% (if I remember correctly). Demand for cod has led to over-fishing in the North Sea. Even juvenile fish have been landed resulting in their not being able to reproduce, thus further reducing the stock of cod. Very soon, there won't be any cod and the cod fishermen will simply have nowt. Is this sustai...

It has been my most stress-free Christmas. I have memories of in-laws rushing about fretting over bread sauce and stuffing and the lot, mum-in-law lamenting that my table was not dressed properly as I did not have any table decorations. "O! I'll make you one next year." She hadn't noticed that we have a very narrow table and there is simply no room for decorations. As a Christian, I know full well that Christmas is about remembering the birth of Jesus and its implications on my personal life. It is also, for me, a celebration of time with loved ones. As someone who had spent several Christmases on my own when I first came to work in this country, Christmas is also a time to share hospitality with those with no family, as a sort of replay of that "no room at the inn" scenario. Last year, with husband being so ill that Christmas nearly had to be "cancelled" , I am thankful that he is in good health this year. In the run-up to Christmas I have been as...

I forgot to mention in my last post that retailers and supermarkets in UK have been up in arms about a EU proposal that seeks to stop China from "dumping" cheap plastic bags here. See article here . The article also tells us that every year an estimated 17.5 BILLION plastic bags are given away by supermarkets, equivalent to about 290 bags for every person in the UK." Well, I don't collect 290 bags a year, and neither does my husband nor my son. So someone else must be collecting our 290 x 3 bags every year. We are also told that "The average plastic bag made in China costs between 1p and 2p, although fancy bags used by fashion shops could cost double that. A retailer such as Marks & Spencer might use 200 million bags every year." The retailers are afraid that a tariff on these bags from China would increase their overheads. This proposed tariff has come about because "30 EU manufacturers complained that Asian competitors were selling bags for expo...

So there is a second toxic chemical spill in a China river today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4548046.stm The first spill, resulting from a Nov 13 explosion at a chemical plant upriver from Harbin, has reached Russia: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4551842.stm Eventually, these harmful chemicals are going to reach the sea. According to a report in http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,387392,00.html , authorities cited human error at a tower that processed benzene, a toxic, potentially cancer-causing chemical used in making plastics , detergents and pesticides . Here's some information about benzene: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/benzene/basics/facts.asp Another reason to reduce the use of plastic? Developed nations accuse China of being slack in their health and safety regime resulting in such environmental disasters. If there isn't a demand for cheap plastic and pesticides, would China be producing these chemicals in such quanti...

Is not a day I wish to re-live. Yet I cannot forget it. Until last year December 22nd was remembered as my late mother's birthday. Last year husband was so ill he didn't get a wink of sleep, and neither did I. He had to go to the toilet about, we've lost count, twenty times? during the night, throwing up both ends. He suffers from an inflammatory bowel disease and was on heavy medication with very undesirable side-effects. His condition was so serious that this standard medication did not work on him. He was also very susceptible to infection and something triggered off this horrendous flare-up. After that sleepless night I emailed family and friends all over the world to say: Pray! If he couldn't keep his food down, he would have to be put on a drip. That means being in hospital over Christmas. That would have been quite unthinkable for young son. I also needed wisdom as to what to feed him to get his energy back. Meanwhile, we had invited a girl who was going to be on...

The lines in front of "customer service" at M&S after Christmas. And Next, and BHS, and you name it. Gift-buyers labour over what to buy before Christmas and recipients labour over returning these gifts straight after Christmas. What's the point? Stick to gold, frankincense and myrrh the next time? Years ago before husband became boyfriend: What would you like for Christmas? Me: I don't need anything for Christmas. Him: I didn't say "What do you need ?". What do you want for Christmas. Me: I don't want anything for Christmas. His aunt insists on buying us stuff and she has to lug it all the way to us on the Tube. This year she is only allowed to buy us both a box of chocolates and a book for our son. I bet she'd show up at the door laden with pressies. I shall have to say to her, as if she was at the airport: Sorry, Ma'am, the parcels have gone past the weight limit. We can't accept this. The thing is she had rung to ask my son what ...

I took my son and visiting nephew to lunch last Friday. Then son and I looked around a couple of shops for some reading material and shoes for him. At WHSmith I suddenly felt -- rather strangely -- hey! my phobia for shopping meant I am missing out on all this festive atmosphere. It's actually quite fun. There's a feeling of adrenalin in the air as people strive to complete their shopping. About twenty minutes later, after son had decided on the Horrid Henry book he wanted from another shop, we stepped out into the shopping precinct and I felt like we had been invaded. There were hordes of high school children out and about. They seemed to be hunting in packs. Some of them were behaving in such a manner that at least one shop pulled their doors half-shut and stationed a security guard at the door. I felt so threatened and son and I made our way out of those crowds as quickly as we could. I still hate shopping. Back to Organic-Ally .

There is nothing in my size and colour and the heaving crowds put me off. My eyes get tired from looking at the range of clothes and useless items on display. I think of the poor girl/young lady/young man/boy paid a pittance for long hours of back-breaking, fine-finger work and I can't bear to part with money that would only fund the profligate lifestyle of the (often corrupt) owner/businessman who might just happen to be at the right place at the right time, or who network with the right people, or who have the means to make donations to certain political parties, or all of the above. There is no room in my wardrobe and until I throw out something that I have outgrown or needs replacing, I do not need another cheap jacket/blouse/skirt/pair of trousers, etc. And then only if I have the means to arrange for these to be recycled properly. Living simply does not mean living cheaply. It means learning how to spend one's money wisely. As an impoverished undergraduate I once bought ...

Our son came home from school last week with this in his school bag: Both Husband and I had a good chuckle. For those who find it difficult to decipher what he has written: It's entitled 'egg Poem' and it says "I am a stupid egg. I don't know a thing." He calls this a 'shape poem'. They had been doing one in the shape of a Christmas tree in class. Somehow he was inspired to do this during his 'golden time'. I was a bit concerned with the sentiment expressed. 'Do you feel you are stupid?' 'No, Mum, it's only a poem.' My boy is growing up so fast. Back to Organic-Ally .

The Royal Mail has announced that it is going to raise the price of its First Class stamps again. My son made a catapult out of two toilet roll cardboard tubes. What have the two in common? The humble elastic band. Son had collected two tubes. He asked for Mummy's help to make two diametrically opposite holes near the rim of the first tube. He cut up an elastic band, threaded it through these holes and stretched the elastic band across, and taped the ends of the band down the outside of the tube. The second tube he cut right down the side and snipped off a piece of it and joined it up together again with tape to turn it into a narrower tube. He then cut notches on diametrically opposite sides of one rim. This second (now) narrower tube is pushed, notched rim end first, into the first wider tube against the stretched elastic band. The notches in the inner tube ensures that the elastic band on the outer tube is properly engaged. He turns it over on the floor to get a grip on both tub...

Been very busy lately with fund-raising projects at son's school to organize and just back from a Christmas party we organize for parents-and-toddlers who come to our weekly groups. But I must tell you about what I discovered late last night. Bishopston , the people who supply my organic cotton fabric with which I make gift bags now sell a tiffin carrier for Christmas. Here's the link (sorry, link broken). If you've missed previous blogs about the use of a tiffin, you can catch up here , or here . I am not sure if they would still have these after Christmas. Back to Organic-Ally .

This piece has got nothing to do with the environment. It is just an observation I made recently. Last year I had the privilege of being awarded a research grant by the British Academy to conduct research on graduate stay-at-home mothers in Singapore. It was an interesting topic of study as mothers in Singapore are expected to work. Many leave their two-month-old infants to the care of foreign maids hardly out of their teenage years to return to full-time work. Graduate mothers, especially, are expected to return to work full-time after the 'investment' by the country in their university education. To quit work altogether to become a stay-at-home mother is very much counter-cultural. One of the most interesting interviews I conducted was with a woman engineer, a mother of three young children. As with every other interviewee she mentioned that one of the skills she honed as a stay-at-home mother is to multi-task. "I am talking to my friend on the phone while watching my ch...

For those who have not come to this blog via links I posted in other forums, this might be of interest: Destroying the Boreal Forest Back to Organic-Ally .

I've watched two or three Dragons' Den programme so far and I was really cross with what I saw in the last programme. A Yorkshire man who invented a device that would save water when flushing toilets was slagged off for being an 'eco-warrior' and written off as uninvestible. He was deemed more interested in saving the world than succeeding in his business. This inventor-entrepreneur was described as arrogant and questions were raised about whether he expected people to look at their own p-- before flushing. This requires a change in habit and the 'Dragons' were not convinced that the device would sell. These 'Dragons' simply didn't get it, did they? The environment has come to such a state that people MUST change their habits and if there are gadgets and tools to help people to do so, then such are to be applauded. They have no idea how fast the market size for earth-friendly products is growing. (As an aside, there is such a high incidence of colon...

A lay member of the congregation preached today and reminded us of what Jesus said about a mustard seed: MT 13:31 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches." I first read the book Mustard Seed Conspiracy by Tom Sine many years ago when I was asked to lead a three-session workshop at the Varsity Christian Fellowship Annual Conference on 'Living Simply'. I didn't like the title of the workshop. It implies that we must 'simplify', reduce and do without. In other words, be poor. As I mingled incognito with the undergraduates, it was clear that many of those coming to my workshop were there only because they did not get their first three choices of workshops and had to come to mine. Poor things! These ar...

Or Killing Two Birds with One Stone I think single-use p-per* wr-pper is such a waste of space. I shan't rehearse the arguments against it here. But you can read more about it here . I've been presenting gifts to my son's classmates in my cloth gift bags . But I was stuck once when a gift didn't fit in any of the bags I have and I was still awaiting delivery of the new stock of organic cotton fabric I had ordered. Solution? It was the summer holiday and I needed to keep my son occupied. We did some potato printing. We'd done this when he was much younger and he enjoyed it. You know the pap-r that comes in parcels as p-ck-ging? I smooth these pap-rs out for making (star) charts and for son to draw on. You can also use these for potato printing, kitchen-roll rolling (tie and tape jute string around the cardboard roll, brush over with paint and roll onto pap-r to make lovely patterns) or simply sponging. We became a little 'factory' making pap-r wr-pper and use...

Son won the Junior School Shield this week. (Yay!) The Shield is awarded each week to a different boy for different achievements apart from showing 'the most consideration for others'. The boys know that it is an honour and my son was delighted. When Husband came back and asked him what he wanted for a reward for that unexpected achievement, his answer was: eat in front of the TV. He was watching his Children's Bedtime Hour and all he wanted was eat in front of the TV. Obviously this is not something he is allowed to do. We make it a habit to sit down for dinner and the TV is always switched off at meals. Husband came into the kitchen where I was and chuckled, 'That's all he wanted, eat in front of the TV.' Which reminded me of a conversation we had in the run-up to our wedding. We were in Singapore with the friend who was going to give the 'exhortation' at our wedding, and his family. His wife worked with very rich children in an international school an...

I'd just sent off a courier who's driven up from Bristol to get my signature on an important form and now must get it back to Leeds. It was a matter of urgency as we were haemorrhaging money with each passing hour. The root of this? Incompetence. A simple thing like a document sent by registered post was signed for and then mysteriously disappeared meant that this courier needed to drive those miles with one piece of paper in one envelope to get to me, and drive many more miles even further away (to a third destination) to stop this haemorrhage. Incompetence costs money, I've always known that. But it made me realise that incompetence, a lousy work ethos, a lack of initiative, ignorance, etc all contribute to unnecessary damage to this earth. It's not only just a question of what we eat and drink, or wear, how we use water and power, etc. Back to Organic-Ally .

So I ripped off the title from The Times writer Martin Samuel. This is his piece on how 'Our food is either cheap (yes, please) or organic (gosh, a bit pricey). Amazingly enough, you can't have both': http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-1872148,00.html As I said before in my original website, BSE came about when people wanted to buy cheap. Cheap now often means a higher price further down the line. Changing the vegetarian diet of cattle led to disastrous results. The only people who did not get blamed for the BSE crisis were the consumers who wanted to buy cheap. There is a much higher price to buying cheap. Chicken is now cheap. As Martin Samuel said, this is achieved by 'putting fowl together in wire cages, with a legal space requirement per chicken that equates to three-quarters of a sheet of A4 paper'. So these chicken live and sleep in their own p--p (being very wary of the AdNoSense effect). Moral of the story: 'You can’t have cheap ethical chic...

During our 'weekend away', the speaker also dwelt on discipline as we continued our study of the Book of Hebrews: HEB 12:7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. The speaker shared of her knowledge of Chinese families where parents give no encouragement at all to their children. If they came back with 95% on a test, they are asked what happened to the five per cent they did not attain instead of commending their children for doing well. I understood what she said. Mother was the encourager. She was the one who checked my homework and made sure I had all my sums right. She expected me to go to university. I worried about not being able to pay tuition fees. She said, 'You just continue to work as you d...

I've just come back from a lovely church 'weekend away'. The speakers were missionaries out in Asia. We were looking in Hebrews 12 and how we are to 'run the race'. This was compared with running a marathon. There were also many references to Eric Liddell made famous in the film 'Chariots of Fire'. I first met the speaker many years ago in Bangkok on a mission trip. He later came to speak at my university and impressed on me the need to 'travel light' for those who are preparing to go into missionary service. I have taken that advice very literally. I left Singapore in 1991 with one suitcase to go into full-time Christian ministry. We sang the song 'Majesty' (Worship his majesty, unto Jesus be all glory, power and praise ....) and immediately it took me back to a Varsity Christian Fellowship camp on the beach back in Singapore, O, so many years ago. The question heavy on my mind was 'Where are all my mates from the Christian Fellowship al...

From which planet do our government ministers come from? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1864565,00.html In a new Bill being proposed, under-threes in the care of nurseries and childminders will be legally required to be taught a National Curriculum. To be policed by Ofsted, this is to ensure that children are taught mathematics, reading and writing. Why? Because three-year-olds have been found to enter PLAYschool (NB emphasis on PLAY) without the necessary basic knowledge. Yet three-year-olds are known to be excluded from playschools for their ability to swear. How do you square this? Who teaches young children to swear? Who teaches young children to count? Is the government now saying that mothers cannot be trusted to teach their own children? Or are they waking up to the fact that too many children are left in the care of institutions and now these institutions must step up on their surrogate parent roles? In either case, the reasoning is flawed. The government is trea...

I just thought it might be a bit of fun to sign up for Google AdSense to see what ads they might place on this blog spot. Before you sign up, they tell you that you can filter out undesirable ads. So imagine my shock when I checked the site early Monday morning and found that they have listed pl--t-c b-gs and pap-r stuff like that, on a site that is trying to get people to STOP using p-as-i- ba-s and p-p-r. I'm not spelling those words out in full in the (vain) hope that the Robot crawler that scans the site might be confused and not place any more of those offending ads on the site. In my simple mind, one should be able to write instructions to tell a machine/software to 'exclude', 'negate', 'ignore' etc so that it does not do what it is doing to my site. Imagine a site extolling the virtues of vegetarianism. We live in world of binary opposition. When we talk of vegetables, we often do so as in opposition to me-t (muscle from animals). The Robot, it appear...

For those of you (yes, all eight of you!!) who do read this blog, you would know where my stand on plastic is. So why are there GoogleAds on p_a_stic on this site? I don't understand either. But I am getting the technical people to sort it out. Meanwhile, just ignore the 'pl_st_c' ads. Back to Organic-Ally .

I'm delighted that the silk wine gift bags I ordered some four months ago will be available for sale later this week on the Organic-Ally website. Here are some pictures: These bags are made from silk, locally sourced and woven, by women of Tabitha in Cambodia. This organization has been helping the poorest of the poor in this country for the past ten years. Tabitha provides a regular income for widowed mothers, land mine victims, displaced war and famine victims, etc. Every item of craft they produce is unique and beautiful. I had some of these bags for sale at an event promoting 'fair trade' at Milton Keynes last week. The lovely customers there tell me that I was selling these bags too cheaply. Organic-Ally will also be returning all post-tax profits to Tabitha. It is a rare phenomenon these days when the purchase of a lovely object would mean that (1) the producer is genuinely helped, (2) the recipient of this gift would be delighted, and (3) the environment will als...

My son's headmaster drew parents' attention to this report in the Daily Telegraph : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/29/nclasses29.xml The gist of it is that middle-class parents who try to give their children a headstart by filling their children's days with all sorts of 'enhancement' activities (French, dance, piano, violin, swimming, computer, etc) might be stunting their children's development. Children need to develop at their own pace. Filling their days with structured activities does not always guarantee desirable results. Tee-hee! I thought, rubbing my hands together (mentally). Vindicated once again. In Singapore for our first holiday since son's arrival I was trying to get books in Chinese to get him started on a second language. A former professor said, 'Books? Who reads books these days? Get him CD-ROMs. Teach him how to use a computer.' It echoed friends' and neighbours' comments that I should invest ...

Those readers in the UK who have been following avidly Penney Poyser's series on No Waste Like Home might remember the scene where she shows us how to shower. Yes, wet, soap and rinse. No problem there. But when it comes to hair, her advice was wet, turn off shower, shampoo, and then rinse. We saw footage of her shampooing her beautiful long black hair. My toes froze. The idea is that we do not waste water by leaving the shower on while we shampoo. Easy to do that in the summer, but in the freezing weather, we tend to leave the shower on (I do, I'm afraid), face away from the shower and shampoo while the warm water keeps me, well, warm. This is a far cry from being in Singapore where typically we turn off the shower to soap and shampoo. But it's constantly 33 degrees C out there. In fact I remember when we had droughts and the daily national water consumption and (lack of) rainfall were closely monitored. As we do not have large porcelain/enamel/whatever bath tubs in our l...

In a previous post I noted the need for people to form a habit for recycling and caring for the environment. Here's a lesson I learned from my Art teacher at 13, and I have never forgotten it. The word HABIT. Take away 'H', and you still have A-BIT. Take away 'A', you are left with BIT Take away 'B', you are still left with IT. You see, HABITS are rather difficult to get rid of. So, let's make sure that we only try to form good habits instead of bad. This is a serious lesson for us parents, I think. Back to Organic-Ally .

I am showing you a picture of my forlorn looking empty kitchen towel roll languishing on its stand. Why? It is testimony to what happens when one switches to cloth table napkins. When this roll was full I didn't think anything of tearing off a sheet or two to clean the table, wipe my mouth, etc. Since reverting to cloth table napkins, we don't actually miss the paper. The down-side is we often get our napkins (in natural unbleached organic cotton) mixed up*. No, to say that we use a clean napkin at every meal would be telling a lie. But if they are used only once at the end of a meal to clean some greasy lips, there is no real need to wash them after each use. *Solution: I'm buying different coloured organic cotton napkins from the Hankettes range so that each member of the family has a different colour napkin. Well, until I am able to find eco-friendly napkin rings that could be personalized. As for cleaning the table, well, I've learned to be less lazy. Because our d...

Here in the UK the clocks were put back on Saturday. Effectively we had an extra hour. Sunday mornings are usually manic in our household as we try to have a lie-in (but not too much) and get ready for church. Well, yesterday, despite husband having to drive to Gatwick to make an unexpected pick-up (his brother lost the car keys while on holiday in Florida), son and I actually managed to get things done. We even managed to get on the bus and got to church on time! So having an extra hour a day does help. The problem is: we can't have this extra hour every day. And then we lose that hour come summer. You win some, you lose some. Back to Organic-Ally .

We managed to get back to the Farmers' Market this last weekend ( see previous post ). Some of the prices were crazy. We got a large punnet of Egremont Russet apples for £1.50. Husband didn't mind the £1.50 but was thrilled that they were ER apples. We asked the stallholder to just tip the apples into our organic cotton string bag , which he did, and he was able to re-use his pl_stic punnet. Later on we saw another stallholder tip a punnet of pears into a pla_tic bag another shopper had brought with her. Further along another lady shopper told the butcher, 'No, no, I've got my own bags.' She had a lovely wicker basket and several 'long life' pl_stic bags. At the baker's, he simply wrapped up our loaf in recycled paper and put it into the string bag I was holding open. None of that 'Would you like a plas_ic bag?' business. I was really encouraged to see how in the space of a few minutes we could observe several people consciously doing their bit f...

While on holiday I could not help but notice how much space some restaurants have 'invested' in play areas. One restaurant we went to had a space that could easily take another 35 to 40 diners devoted to children. They had built a wonderful obstacle course and soft play area that my son kept wanting to return to. When I first worked in the UK the only children we saw at restaurants were Chinese ones, in one particular Chinese restaurant. There was, and still is, no play area for the children. Children were expected to sit quietly during the meal and ate just like adults. The only distraction was a fish tank. My own childhood experience of restaurants was just like that. We sat at huge round tables. We sat and made polite conversation. We sat and answered questions by relations we do not recognize at wedding banquets, etc. We sat and ate what the adults ate. When we got bored we were taken to the aquarium to watch the fishes. Some restaurants have other types of fish tanks. Occa...

Just back from a much-needed break with husband and son, to a holiday place with lots of children. 'Family-friendly' they are called these days. It was fascinating to see very tiny babies being taken on holiday. Some didn't look more than two or three weeks old. We didn't go any where when our son was that young. I think my first trip out of the HOUSE was going to the local sub-post office two minutes walk away. Son was about three weeks old. Even then it took me a long time to pluck up enough courage to do that. I was so nervous. Never used that pushchair before. Not sure how things click and unclick in and out of place. What if I failed to secure the seat and baby falls out? After 30-plus hours of labour and an emergency Caesarean-section I was still feeling a bit sore where they had cut me open, and I wasn't sure I could lift the pushchair (just one end of it) across the threshold to get out, and then to come back in again. It was like I had to will myself to com...

Cousin took us out to lunch as she normally does during her stays with us. We went to Oriental City in Colindale where there is a 'food court'. It's a concept familiar with us Singaporeans. Different stalls sell different types of food in a 'court' (ie large hall) and we can purchase from any of the vendors, pay for it, wait for our order number to be flashed up on an electronic board, collect the food, and eat it any where we could find room to sit. There's a wide range of foods ranging from Vietnamese to Japanese, different types of Chinese to cuisines from different parts of south-east Asia (Malaysian 'nasi goreng', Singaporean 'Hainanese chicken rice', Thai green curry, etc). We had our greasy fill -- we do indulge once in a while -- but found that we could not finish the Shanghainese ('little dragon') dumplings that cousin ordered. To be honest, I didn't like it all that much. Usually, that would have gone to waste. Not today. To...

Well, cousin has flown in again to attend classes as part of her PhD programme. She looked at the stuff we have in the fridge. 'Wah, you're buying all organic now.' My reply was, 'You know, in my mother's time, everything we bought was organic. Then they brought in intensive farming. And now we are paying a premium for "organic".' While we were both growing up in Singapore we could drive down fairly main thoroughfares and catch a whiff of organic manure. (I am thinking of Potong Pasir and Braddell Road.) There were vegetable farms and pig farms where now high-rise flats are standing. Fruit and vegetables were plentiful and not too expensive. Meat was dearer. Chicken was only for celebrations. I remember my sisters having a school reunion in our little flat. Can't imagine how brave they were to even think of that. They gathered a group of school friends from primary school and they partied in our tiny little two-bedroom flat in Queenstown. The highl...

I was brushing my son's teeth. Once or twice a week I feel I have to make sure his teeth are brushed properly. While I was doing this he raised his hand and ran a finger down my face. 'What's this?' he asked. 'What's what?' I replied, being a bit miffed. 'What's this?' son repeated, running finger down one side of my nose and past the corner of my mouth. 'That? O, I suppose it's a line. Your mummy is old. She's an old woman. Old women have lines on their faces, you know. You don't mind your mummy being an old woman, do you?' 'No,' son said, 'I don't mind.... Actually I do, because that means you would soon die, isn't it?' 'Yes, but I hope to live a lot longer and not die so soon.' That is what happens when one has children late in life. We have never tried to hide from son the painful realities of life -- like death. And he has worked out that Mummy and Daddy, being older than most (possibly all...

Went to the French Market happening around here last weekend. Bought some chestnuts for son as we could not find any conkers around here for him. Thought I should roast some of these in the oven, it being a cool-ish evening. BANG! went one. Oops! Better get the rest out of the oven quick. Retrieved the tray, put in on the hob, and BANG!! went another one right before my eyes. Bits of chestnut every where in the kitchen. Bother! Back to Organic-Ally

It has been an incredibly hectic week. There was a fund-raising event to help organize at son's school and a major church project to take care of. At very short notice we were given a video project to sort out. I ended up having to edit 90-plus minutes of video footage into 12 minutes. On Friday I had to, unexpectedly, shoot some new footage to add to these 12, and eventually had to sub-title the whole project. There was no script, no guidelines, no concept to work with. It was just: produce 15 minutes of video that we could show to the public. I like hard work. I like the adrenalin of getting things done by a deadline. But I was so tired by Friday evening. When I started making mistakes and a pain was creeping up my wrist, I knew it was time to stop. Saturday morning found me frantically splicing the video. Husband took care of son while I did this. Then it was his turn to complete the technical bit while I entertained our son ... well, more like getting him to complete his homewo...

The title to this section of Letters to The Times is 'Poor kids can't have their cake and eat it'. One letter-writer pointed out that the 'humiliation of poverty is a reason for truancy' as poor families 'are unable to respond to the peer pressure in the playground that results from brand targeting by advertisers'. When in my first year of school in Singapore I was asked to bring in twenty cents to buy a plastic cover for a workbook. My mum could not find those twenty cents. Instead my eldest sister sacrificed an old plastic cover from one of her old books. A wealthier girl at school laughed at me. I was so embarrassed I went home and cried my heart out. The following week, Mum squeezed twenty cents from the housekeeping money and I had my new plastic cover like everyone else in class. So I understand where this letter-writer is coming from in terms of peer pressure. But he goes on to note that the same single mother of four children on unemployment benefi...

Dr Barry Marshall has just been awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work (with colleague Robin Warren) in the research of stomach ulcers. Having injected himself with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori , Dr Marshall developed the symptoms of stomach ulcers and then proceeded to treat himself with antibiotics. I've come across the name Barry Marshall about ten years ago when I saw a documentary featuring his work. I was interested because my selfless mother nearly died from stomach ulcers back in the 1980s. Thankfully her doctor managed to control her condition by drugs, but she was then put on a very expensive drug for years. Dr Marshall's finding suggested that sufferers of stomach ulcers could have lived in poverty at some point where a combination of poor nutrition and bad hygiene could have allowed the bug to enter the body. The bug could lay dormant for years and manifest itself only years later. Mum fitted this profile exactly. During the Japanese Occupation, Mum, ...