The Imagination of Trees: Oily fish

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Oily fish

It has been several months since my last, and final, unfortunate encounter with a mackrel. I felt it was time to give the humble Herring a chance. All the whole food experts and nutritionists and all the good people out there eager for healthy brains, guts, hearts and so on recommend the very thing that strikes fear into my heart and a projectile vomit message to my stomach.

Oily fish.

Those of you who have read my previous post will be familiar with the wildly enthusiastic Patrick Holford. He is the big time believer in the power of food to transform our lives. He is the man who swears that an oily fish several times a week keeps the Doctor at bay. Knowing Patrick he would eat it with it's head still on, eyes blinking, such is his passion for fresh produce. I chickened out and almost cried with relief when the fishmonger offered to take off it's head and insides. The Mackrel had come complete with it's innards and I had forgotten to take them out during the last fateful liaison with an oily fish. I was embarrassingly grateful to see The Herring headless and gutless.

I had thought that with the head and eyes missing and the fish offal scraped out I was on to a better start. No. Not so. Patrick didn't help me, because he forbids sea salt and additional oil. The only mention of the word 'butter' is somewhere on the graph of 'foods that KILL' under 'dairy fats'. Perhaps he is concerned that if he types the word 'butter', even under the chapter on Heart Disease, he might remember that comforting smell of sizzling golden butter warming on the stove. God alone knows what would become of him if he remembered the taste of a hot, salted chip or the texture of a newly baked loaf of white bread. Yes...you guessed it...white bread is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Even on its own, its wrong. You can forget all about the fresh zing of home-made marmalade....because of the sugar...WRONG!

I love to get sanctimonious about what I percieve as my Puritan eathing habits to my heathen husband. A man so addicted to freshly ground coffee, Yorkie Bars and sausage rolls that I often remind him of his mortality and threaten to avoid his funeral when (not 'if') he dies before he reaches 45. The man is moderate really, but I do enjoy whining about his buttered crumpets, sighing about his occasional bowls of vanilla ice cream, tutting about the emptied biscuit tin, and we all know why, don't we? Yes, its because I'm jealous. I'm jealous of every single mouthful, and I'm jealous that he doesn't care a stuff, and I would love to be so unconcerned with my health, my body, my spare tyre.

I tried today, I'm sorry Patrick but I really tried. I managed the tasteless splodge of saltless, sugarless oats this morning by going wild and adding some walnuts. They didn't help much, and by 11 am I was reaching for the pumpkin seeds all over again.

2 comments:

Jin said...: Vita Coco, a coconut water drink, is a great way to be healthy without compromising on taste. I’m working with Vita Coco, and they’re currently having a promotion on Amazon; just enter the code 2BUCKVIT to get a discount for a limited time only – by the way, you can join Vita Coco’s Facebook group if you’re keen on getting more updates!; 3 February 2010 at 23:13
Aunty P said...: I think you should consign Patrick to the nearest bin, pronto. I take it he recommended the hemp? xx; 8 April 2010 at 20:50

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My original introduction

This photo was taken by my husband Graham on Iona. It is important here because it represents the way in which my Mum's death and funeral offered me healing. It marks a point at which I have decided, as she did, to be fully myself and live every moment given to me as fruitfully as I can. As part of this I wanted to start a 'new thing' and start allowing people to see more of my writing and therefore live my life more openly.
This blog is a response to the insights so many shared at Mum's funeral. I discovered there that my Mum was so much more than simply my Mum. She was never a saint, had many flaws, she could be frustrating and difficult like me. But I realise that these things were tiny when balanced next to her capacity for living and for giving. What emerged from her funeral was an image of a woman whose appetite for life and for quality of life was remarkable. She was entirely herself with everyone, whatever the cost. She gave all that she had to the people she loved, she fed us, nurtured us and showed us that every detail of every day was a blessing.
I am giving you my writing as part of the fruits of my life and person in honour of her memory and continued presence in my life. It is a risk I am now willing to take. She has given me the courage to live my life boldly.
When my Mum was dying I went to the Cathedral and imagined her saying goodbye at the side of an expanse of water. In my imagination there was a boat waiting for her to depart. In my mind I urged her to get in her boat, turn her back on us all, never look back and hope for the light on the other side of the water.
The boat story of Jesus telling terrified disciples not to be afraid in the storm and calming the waves has always been comfort to me in the storms of my life. There are so many ways of looking at the symbolic meaning of a boat.
For me this photo speaks to me about a song called 'Lord you have come to the lakeside' and in it there is a line. 'Now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me; by your side, I will seek other seas.' It is a line which kept coming to me as a friend of mine sat at her Aunt's bedside in her final hours. I sang it for her and her partner as they said their goodbyes as a prayer for them, because I knew how much they liked it. I think it began to speak to me too. When I urged my Mum to the other shore it seemed that her boat was only her own and no one could be in it with her. In her death I do feel called to 'seek other seas' as a new beginning with which to honour her departing.

Books I'm reading & books I've just read

The New Black; Mourning and Melancholia by Daniel Leader
The Time Travellers Wife
Retribution by Maureen Duffy
The Summer Book by Tove Janson
Voice Over by Celine Curiol
Perfume by Patrick Siskund
Loads of Alan Bennett's writings
Writing Home by Alan Bennett
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Salmon Fishing in The Yemen
Engelby, Sebastian Faulks
The Lolipop Shoes; Joanne Harris
The Prospect of Heaven: Musings of an Enquiring Believer, Frederick Levison
The Courage to Connect; Becoming all we Can Be, Rosemary Lain-Priestley

About my Writing

My writing tends towards the poetic, it has also been described as filmic. It is intensely personal and seeped in Christian imagery and thinking. I think it is spiritual writing in that it is rooted in the belief that there is a God and that God is very real to us in this time and place on earth. I write because it is something I am unable to live without. I write because it is healing and therapeutic. I write out of instinct and because I am by nature 'a writer'. I write for myself and for others that I know and love. I write for specific occasions and for purposes as well as for its own sake. Writing is a pleasure for me.
I write sporadicallly and as the mood takes me, it is not a disciplined exercise but something which emerges from my soul when it needs to be created. I have been astonished to find that people around me need my writing. They ask for what I have written and they ask for more. This blog is an attempt to meet that demand, not because I feel pressured to do so, but because God has given me a gift and it is begging to be used. People are asking me to us this gift fruitfully.
I think my writing is healing in its nature, it is soulful and intimate, it reaches places within us which we do not understand and it sometimes moves people to tears. It doesn't seem that writing like this is a productive or lucrative affair. It is not a 'niche market', it is not designed for profit or thought through in any sense. This approach would disable it.

The Imagination of Trees