Organic-Ally

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,